


What They Are Built For

by ReyofLight2187



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben & Rey Are NOT Related, Ben Has A Potty Mouth, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Buddhist Tones, Dark, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Hope, Hopefully Enough Fluff To Offset, Hurt/Comfort, I Need A Hug At This Point, Love, Neglect, Psychological issues, Recovery, Rey Needs A Hug, Romance, So much angst, Trust Issues, Verbal Abuse/Torment, Violence, compassion - Freeform, drug references, no seriously so much angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 10:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 69,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17937677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyofLight2187/pseuds/ReyofLight2187
Summary: In a modern A/U setting, Rey leaves her quiet mountain life and meets a deeply troubled Ben Solo who recently cut ties with a cruel and narcissistic leader at a terrible cost. It feels impossible to get close to someone who hates being touched, and life gets even more complicated when her new employer turns out to be intimately connected to her family...This story is dark in parts and full of angst and barriers to cross. I promise it's all leading to a happy ending.





	1. The City

_A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. - John A. Shedd_

 

Luke Skywalker steps onto the white stone bridge he had built once upon a time, the first thing he created in this meadow in the mountains that became his home. He halts at the peak of the arch and breathes in the evening spring air, never tiring of the sound of the brook babbling beneath him. He feels heavier today, anchored down to an unwelcoming earth. Lost, foggy, sad. He stands on the bridge with an uncharacteristic slouch, as though deciding whether or not he’s too tired to manage the remaining twenty feet to his hut.

In his right hand he carries a slender box with a red ribbon around it and in his left, a staff. He watches the thin spiral of smoke coming from his chimney and smiles, despite the heaviness of his heart. He clutches the slender box a little tighter and continues on his way.

Careful to wipe his shoes on the entrance rug, he pushes his staff against the wooden door, and it creaks open. Inside, Rey is setting the table with a hot pot of stew bubbling on the stove behind her.

“Welcome back!” she says brightly. His little Rey, his not so little Rey. The way her freckled nose crinkles when she smiles makes his eyes misty. He’s been so nostalgic today. It’s unlike him. “What do you have there, Uncle?”

Luke chuckles as he kicks off his shoes and places the package on the kitchen counter.

“You didn’t think I’d forget your twenty-second birthday, did you?”

“Well considering it was yesterday, I supposed you did.” Rey plants a kiss on his cheek and picks up the package.

“Sorry about that,” says Luke. “You know I wanted to be here.”

“And how was the retreat?”

“It was – peaceful.”

“Good.” Rey shakes the box and begins to unwrap it.

“This is something I’ve had a long time – belonged to an old man I used to own a business with,” says Luke, watching closely as she takes the Tanto blade out of the sheath. “I took it to town to get it buffed and cleaned up so it would be like new for you. Damascus steel. Hand forged. Leather hilt. Do you like it?”

“I love it,” says Rey, giving him a one-armed hug and placing the knife tenderly on the mantel.

Luke wipes his forehead with his handkerchief and grins as Rey returns to take his old, weathered hands in hers.

“You are so special, little Rey,” he says.

“What’s gotten into you today?” says Rey, chortling. “Are you feeling alright?”

Luke nods, looking at the little tendrils of hair along her face that have come loose from her three buns. So nostalgic today.

“I’m afraid I received some bad news once the retreat ended.”

Rey’s frown makes his already sorrowful heart crumble. He reaches up and tickles under her ear, playfully. She appeases him with a half-smile, but continues looking at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I found out an old friend of mine passed a few days ago. My sister’s husband.”

Rey puts her hands over her nose and mouth, her eyes wide and sympathetic.

“What happened to him?” says Rey.

“His heart had been giving him problems for years,” Luke says, wondering why he’s never noticed the little golden flecks in Rey’s irises before.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“In fact, there is,” says Luke, rubbing his soft thumbs on top of her hands. “You can help an old man face his family again. The funeral is on Saturday.”

Rey’s face brightens. “In the city?”

“Yes, in the city.” Luke grins. “My sister, Leia has invited both of us to stay with her.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry this has happened, Uncle Luke,” Rey says emphatically. “But it will be lovely to meet her finally.”

“I agree. I should have introduced you long ago. I’m realizing things like that today. Old, foolish mistakes. Time I didn’t make, in a lifestyle that spares me nothing but time. The last time I saw Han was…oh, years ago now.”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Rey scolds. “There is always time to change.”

Luke smiles. “Well, it’ll be good for you to be around some people other than me, for once. I hope my lifestyle hasn’t made you socially inept and unreachable.”

Rey laughs. “No, that’s just you.”

***

Rey feels like she’s stepping into a different world when she reaches the base of the mountain and gets into the cab that was waiting for them. She is from the city originally, and she’s returned for certain errands several times in the last ten years, but it’s been far and few between.

It’s a five-hour drive to Leia’s manor and Rey’s eyes haven’t drooped once. The reflection of skyscrapers and neon lights flash across her eyes, the busyness and noise both alarming and exciting. She’s sad for Luke and the purpose of their visit, yet at the same time visiting the city is a most wonderful birthday present. She squeezes Luke’s hand every so often, as though to reassure herself that this is really happening, and not some dream.

When the cab driver pulls into Leia’s long driveway, Rey thinks they have simply taken another turn through a wealthy neighborhood. She didn’t realize this entire property was owned by one person. Then the taxi comes to a whining stop at the front of the largest house Rey has ever seen.

The curtain turns behind the multipaned widow on the porch. Then the great mahogany door swings open and a small woman wearing a flowy, sky-blue wrap hurries out. Her eyes are already wet by the time she throws her arms around Luke and doesn’t let go.   

Rey is enchanted by the beauty of this place. Trees of all kinds line the front of the manor, and from what she can see in the curve of the backyard, there’s an enormous garden planted back there. Luke always told her that he and Rey lived in the center of their own abundant garden, nature’s garden, for miles and miles. But nature’s garden didn’t have stone water fountains or silver fairy statues or cobblestone paths winding through rows upon rows of perfectly maintained flowers and bushes, warm lanterns at each corner like the intersections of city streets, white lights along the path that sparkle like fireflies. She’s itching to go back there and drink it all in.

“Leia, this is Rey.”

Luke’s sister opens her arms to Rey as though she has known her all her life. Rey had forgotten how soft a woman could be, how warm and gentle. Rey frowns as an unexpected drop of loss sifts into her stomach, and for a reason she can’t quite point to, the corners of her eyes begin to prickle.

Leia pulls away and puts both hands over Rey’s cheeks. “She’s beautiful, Luke.”

Leia takes Rey’s hand in her right and Luke’s hand in her left and guides them inside, where a small group of people are lounging in the sitting room.

“This home is a hotel for a few days,” Leia whispers. “Han would have been horrified.”

She laughs wistfully and bustles to the kitchen where she prepares Luke and Rey a glass of water. Then she gathers some empty hors d’ouevre plates and begins to wash them, her hands trembling.

“Leia,” says Luke, gently, putting a hand over her busy ones.

She drops the plates into the soapy water and hangs her head. “He didn’t come.”

“That’s alright.” Luke nods, patiently. “Why don’t you introduce us to your guests?”

“They aren’t much better company than me,” Leia snorts, resuming her dish washing. “Do you remember that boy, Hux, who used to live down the way? Surely you do, he and Ben were hardly seen without the other.”

“Red haired fellow?”

“Yes, that’s the one. Well, we got word the other day – he was murdered near the old Brixton building, a known First Order hang out. Phasma over there on the red couch, perhaps you remember her too – she was his fiancé.”

Rey looks over at the tall, blond woman who is swirling her cocktail, watching it absent-mindedly with bloodshot eyes.

Rey shivers as the dark mood of the room seems to seep into her skin. She suddenly feels claustrophobic, anxious; feelings she hasn’t felt in so long she had forgotten. She and Luke always have such a peaceful energy in their humble hut. It’s gloomy in this large, bright room. It’s bitter and cold – even though a pleasant spring day waits just outside those great bay windows.  

“Ah, here’s a happier soul!” says Leia.

Rey turns as a pleasant-faced man walks up and shakes hands with Luke.

“Finn is a dear family friend,” says Leia fondly. “My assistant, Rose snagged him up about two years ago and he’s been stuck with us ever since.”

“Good to meet you,” says Luke. “This is Rey.”

Finn smiles broadly and shakes Rey’s hand with both of his.

“Good to meet you, Rey. Can I interest you in a walk through the gardens?”

Rey smiles at him gratefully and feels some warmth reenter her body.

“Yes, we should all go,” says Leia. “I thought it’d be pleasant if, instead of a traditional funeral, we go outside and just talk about him. Walk around, be silent, whatever we’d like. No agenda.”

Luke puts an arm around her as they follow Finn and Rey outside. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

Leia shakes her head and takes a deep, refreshing breath of air. Cherry blossoms float by and she opens her arms to them. “No, this is me. It is now. Never too late to change.”

Luke kisses the top of her hair and winks at Rey. Finn offers Rey an arm and leads her toward the bamboo.

“Welcome,” says Finn. “It’s good to meet someone around our age. And, frankly, someone who doesn’t look like they’ve been crying today.”

Rey chuckles. “Thanks, I’m just glad to be somewhere new. Luke and I live in the mountains – I haven’t been in the city for a long time.”

“The illustrious Luke,” Finn turns around to spot Luke and continues on, walking backwards. “Never thought we’d ever meet him. Are you his daughter?”

“No, but he’s raised me since I was twelve.”

“Alright, cool.” Finn turns back around and picks a peach off a tree they pass by. “Rose will be here soon, so you can meet her. How long are you staying? If you’re here a few days, she and I could take you to a great place for lunch some time. It’s a bit of a drive, but it’s the best rib shack in…”

Rey isn’t really listening but something about the rich, pleasant tone of his voice makes her feel like herself again. He’s friendly and honest and doesn’t pry. It looks like she’s already made a friend and she’s been in the city for less than two hours.

Now outside in this magical garden Leia calls a backyard, Rey feels light again. She finds a calm beauty in the way everyone saunters around, occasionally hugging or sharing a story. She starts to wish she knew this Han Solo. Just about every story ends in laughter and laughter is one of her favorite sounds in the world.

           

That night, Rey snuggles into her soft four-poster, watching the full moon through her bedroom window. The stars and planets aren’t as bright as back home, but the moon is the same. She closes her eyes and feels gratitude for the day, that Luke brought her here at last.

She’s about to drift to sleep when she hears what sounds like someone knocking from outside. She sits up and pulls the covers up to her chin. Strangers knocking outside are not problems she has back home with Luke.

She peers out her window but doesn’t see anything. Then she hears it again – it’s outside, but the knocking is on the back patio next to her window. Leia’s room. Rey stands up, slides on her borrowed fluffy slippers, and looks past the silk curtain.

The silhouette of a man is standing on Leia’s back patio, tapping on her door. The door cracks open and Rey sees Leia’s small form freeze in the threshold. Rey’s window is ajar, and she thinks it’s quiet enough outside that she should be able to hear them if they would speak, but they don’t seem to say anything.

The tall man and Leia stare at each other for a full minute. Rey can’t really see his face, but Leia’s looks anguished.

Finally, Leia steps back inside. Looking at the ground, she says, “The guesthouse is unlocked,” and shuts the door.

The man stays on the porch for a moment longer before turning around and disappearing into the garden. Rey can hear broken sobs from the other room.


	2. The Garden

Rey wakes up the following morning and gets ready for the day while thinking of the man on Leia’s patio last night. As she finishes putting up her hair, she hears a soft tap on her bedroom door. She knows that knock.

“Come in, Uncle.”

Luke opens the door, holding his staff, wearing his light tan robes.

“Care to meditate in the garden with me this fine morning?”

Rey slips an arm through his and accompanies him to the back door. The garden somehow looks different from last night. It’s fresh and pungent and makes Rey think of home. Without the fairy lights on, the statues and fountains blend in more with the plant life. They could just be stray boulders.

Luke sits on a bench between two bird feeders. He closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath. Rey has more trouble clearing her head. She notices a structure she had missed yesterday. A small guest house, though still much bigger than her and Luke’s home, at the edge of the garden several yards away. It looks like a miniature version of the manor. She wonders if she should tell Luke what she saw last night.           

Suddenly, Rey hears the back door of the manor bounce shut and the blond woman from yesterday, Phasma, marches through the garden towards the guest house, red-faced and scowling with fury. Rey watches like it’s a car accident from which she can’t turn away.

Phasma pounds on the guest house door. Nobody answers. She goes to the nearest window and shouts, “Coward! Come out and face me!”

Luke opens his eyes with a start and looks at the scene ahead of them.

“Whom is she talking to?” Luke asks Rey.

“I think Leia’s son came home last night.”

Luke turns back to the guest house, alarmed.

“How DARE you show your face here!” Phasma screams through the window. “How DARE you torture your mother this way!”

Rey looks over her shoulder at the manor; a few of the funeral guests are peering through the windows to see what is going on. Leia steps outside on the patio, concerned.

Phasma kicks the heavy mahogany door.

“Open this door! Or don’t you have the balls to look at me? You – complete – MONSTER!” she cries, kicking the door after each word.

Phasma steps off the porch and picks up a small stone Buddha that was perched next to a bird feeder.

“I will throw this through the window, Ben Solo, so help me - !”

The front door bursts open and out comes the man from the night before; enormous, much taller than Rey had noticed in the dark. His face is contorted with rage and he steps straight over to Phasma, who, though tall herself, only comes up to his chin.

Luke stands up abruptly. Leia holds her hands over her mouth and Rey hears Finn call out, “Hey!”

Phasma doesn’t back down. She stares straight into his eyes, and even lifts herself up higher on her toes. Rey can see her tight lips whispering something but she can’t hear her any longer. The tall man whirls around and punches the brick pillar by the door. He doubles over, holding his hand to his stomach. Even from a distance Rey can see droplets of blood fall on the wooden porch.

Phasma is crying. She drops to her knees. She’s murmuring something over and over again.

The man shouts, “I KNOW!”

Luke seems to come to his senses finally and begins to walk over to them. He calls to Rey, “Help her inside.”

Rey jogs to catch up. Phasma is crying in her hands, rocking back and forth, chanting, “It’s your fault, it’s all your fault, it’s your fault, it’s all your fault…”

Rey puts an arm over her shoulders. “Phasma, it’s okay, why don’t you come back to the house with me?”

The man is still cradling his damaged wrist. Luke goes to put a hand on his shoulder, and he slinks back as though Luke was coming at him with a knife. He glares at Luke like he’s never seen anything more revolting in his life.

“Get her inside, Rey,” says Luke, calmly.

“Let’s go.” Rey gently pulls Phasma’s arm and Phasma stumbles upward. She slouches as she follows Rey back to the house, wiping her eyes.

Once inside, Phasma disappears into her bedroom and Rey takes a seat at the kitchen table, her head spinning. Leia joins her a moment later, sitting across from her and handing her a glass of water.

“I’m so sorry, little Rey,” says Leia.

“Why? You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

“You’ve been hidden away all these years and I’ve so wanted to meet you. Now that we’re finally together, it’s under all these…troubling terms.”

Rey reaches for Leia’s hand and cradles it against her cheek. “That's okay... I'm just happy to be here with you.”

Leia scrambles upright to hug Rey to her heart. She squeezes her shoulders and kisses the top of her head.

 “Are you okay, auntie?”

Leia leans back and nods while playing lovingly with Rey’s hair. “I am. Now that we’re all together again – you, me, Luke…all will be right. I know it.”

 

Rey offers to make dinner for Leia and the few remaining funeral guests. While she cooks, Phasma exits her bedroom holding her overnight bag, bids Leia a strained, “Good luck and I’m sorry for your loss” and retreats out the front door.

Luke comes back inside after everyone has eaten and retired to their bedrooms. Rey waits up for him in the kitchen, sketching a drawing in her notebook. Rey smells cloves as he bends over and kisses her temple.

“That’s beautiful,” he says to her drawing. “Leia’s garden?”

Rey nods as he takes a seat next to her. “You’ve been gone a while.”

Luke sighs heavily, the lines on his face more prominent than ever. “My nephew tolerated my speeches for about two minutes before locking himself back inside that guest house. I’ve been out for a long walk.”

Rey closes her sketchbook and leans forward in her chair. “Had a lot to think about, then?”

Luke nods.

“Is he okay?” Rey asks. “Your nephew?”

Luke shrugs. “His wrist is either sprained or broken. He wouldn’t let me look at it. Otherwise…I don’t think he’s ever been okay a day in his life. Who knows. None of us have seen or heard from him in over ten years.”

Rey considers him with a frown on her face. “I wonder why he came back.”

Luke shrugs again. “I heard the business he worked for finally dissolved. He probably doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

They sit in moonlit silence for a few minutes, Luke staring at the table deep in thought and Rey watching him. At last, Luke looks up and takes Rey’s hand.

“I mulled over some ideas on my walk,” says Luke, “and I came to a conclusion I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay…”

“How would you feel about extending our trip?”

Rey’s jaw drops and her eyes grow. “Really? For how long?”

“A while,” he says. “I wasn’t going to put a time frame on it. Once Leia is settled, her affairs are in order, once she’s back to her usual self. Once this business with her son is sorted out. I don’t know. Once it feels right to leave.”

“Luke…” says Rey, her expression bright. “I would love that.”

Luke nods, relieved. “Very well. I’ll talk to Leia about it in the morning. But if you ever change your mind and want to go home, just say the word…”

“No, I won’t,” Rey says, smiling despite herself. “I would be happy to help, too, with anything she needs.”

Luke pats her hand. “I’m sure that would be appreciated.” He stands up and stretches. “Thank you, Rey. Thanks for understanding. I think I’ve been away from my sister long enough. And I think maybe it’s time you and I stopped hiding from the real world.”

Rey is surprised at that comment. She never considered that was what they were doing. Maybe he is right. Either way, she is excited to come out into the open; explore this beautiful city, get to know her new family, make some actual friends.

“Goodnight, little one,” says Luke. “See you in the morning.”

 

In the weeks that follow, Rey is so busy she feels like she crashes, rather than falls to sleep each night. From a quiet, peaceful life in the mountains to an atmosphere that is bursting with energy and coffee and artificial lights, she is in a whirlwind of activity and noise and culture shock. She’s happy, though. When she looks in the mirror at night before bed, her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are bright, and her smile is real.

Finn and Rose have been gracious enough to include her in their goings on, most of which they apologize to her for being boring, and all of which is more excitement than she’s had in years.

One of the first outings they took her on was a trip to an Aikido studio. Rey had told them she was a dedicated student, and they thought she might like to take a class. She met the local master and he had her demonstrate her abilities to see which class would be appropriate for her. By the end of the session, instead of a class, he offered her a job as his apprentice. Rey left the studio with Finn and Rose, bursting at the seams with excitement.

Every place in the city they have introduced her to is more fascinating than the last. Rey feels like a child in her first amusement park.   

The only downside has been at the end of the day, when she is taken back home to Leia’s house. Rey loves her auntie, her enormous house, and her beautiful garden. Leia has frequent visitors and is incredibly active in the community. But the energy at home is strangely lonely for a place that’s always so full of people. It’s rather sad for a place that often has laughter echoing down the halls. It’s similar to the feeling Rey had when she first arrived with Luke. Leia puts on a brave face and plays her part well, but it is clear her light has been dimmed since the death of her husband.

Leia assures Luke and Rey everyday that they can’t imagine how happy she is that they’ve decided to stay with her. And she does seem to enjoy throwing them garden parties, introducing them to old associates and friends, taking them to every fine restaurant, every tourist attraction, every park, every form of entertainment she can find in the city. But there is only so much she can do to fill up her day before at last her world becomes too heavy and her forced smile sinks back to a frown. There are only so many places she can look before her eyes are pulled back to the garden window, to where her guest house sits cold and alone.

That guest house seems to receive a fair share of scowls and glares from anyone who comes over. No one to Rey’s knowledge has tried to confront the new occupant since Phasma, but it is clear he is unwelcomed by anyone close to Leia. The few times he has made an appearance in the short distance between his car and his house, everyone either turns away or walks away, and even after he disappears again behind the front door, frowns settle, and conversation becomes strained.

Even Finn, who Rey believed was friendly with everyone, becomes rigid in his presence and walks away with a stiff upper lip.

Rey is the most surprised at Luke, who has taught her throughout her life not to hold judgments against anyone for any reason. But despite years of training and meditating in the mountains, there is a dark look in his eye that Rey has never seen before any time someone so much as mentions Ben’s name.

The truth is, Rey is starting to feel sorry for this unwanted guest. Not that he appears to desire anyone’s company either, but it is so obvious he is suffering. Each time she sees him pass by there are dark shadows under his eyes. He is emaciated, pale, disheveled. Rey suspects he isn’t sleeping or eating, yet even Leia doesn’t make any attempts to reach out. Rey imagines everyone’s cold silence is about as enjoyable as Phasma’s shouting, but not one person seems to care about that. If they do, no one has done anything to stop it.   

The day Rey decides to put an end to it herself is the first day since the funeral that Phasma returns for a visit. Phasma must not have imagined Ben would still be here when she helps herself through the garden and finds Leia having tea with Rey under a cherry tree. She briskly hands Leia an invitation to her late fiancé, Hux’s celebration of life, declines the offer to sit down, explains she is only passing through, and wanted to deliver the invite in person.

Rey doesn’t think Phasma looks much better off than Ben. Her eyes are as bloodshot as the day they met, her hair is flat, her face blotchy. Phasma avoids eye contact with both of them but attempts to smile and bids them a good day before turning around to return to her car. She might have come and gone without any trouble, but it so happened that Ben chose that moment to pass through the garden with a bag of groceries.

Both he and Phasma freeze with their hackles raised like two alpha cats on the same territory. Ben’s eyes flit to the stack of invitations in Phasma’s hand. Her face flushes through three different shades of purple.

“Don’t think for a minute you’re coming to this,” she snaps at him.  

Ben seems to be experiencing an inner struggle. Anger, frustration, and desperation pass over his face in an instant.

He straightens his back, sets his jaw, and says, “He wouldn’t have wanted you to keep me away.”

Phasma’s eyes bulge out of her head in outrage. Her voice trembles as she sputters, “Don’t f-fucking talk to me about what he wanted…”

Ben’s upper lip twitches and he takes a careful breath.

“If we could speak in private – ”

“I have NOTHING to say to you in private, you – ”

“Phasma,” warns Leia, her tea cup shaking in her hand. Rey quickly takes Leia’s other hand from the table.

Rey can feel waves of aggression spilling from Phasma and walls of sorrow and rage crashing around Ben. The energy of this hostility and suffering is outstanding. No wonder Leia is trembling.

Ben speaks through his teeth as he tries again: “You and I wouldn’t need to interact, if I could just – ”

Phasma holds up a hand, stopping him. She cocks her head, swallows down the volume of her voice, and says in a low, menacing tone, “I do not want you there. He wouldn’t either. And you know that.”

Rey sees a thin sheen in Ben’s eyes. He purses his lips, nods once, and steps back toward the guest house.

“Phasma,” Rey gasps, despite herself. “Was that necessary?”

Phasma turns on Rey with the same look of disdain. “Don’t fall for it – he’s a monster, the devil himself. He destroys everything he touches, everything that’s ever been important to me.”

She turns to Leia. “Sorry for this, you’ve had enough to worry about. I wish he hadn’t come to make this worse for you. Anyway, I’ll go now, and I look forward to seeing you two next weekend at the celebration.”

She wisps away, her hair flicking behind her, and her fists in balls at her sides.

Leia is still gripping Rey’s hand. Once Phasma disappears past the gate she places Rey’s hand back on the table and pats it a few times.

Rey watches her carefully, searching for signs of distress.

“She needs someone to blame,” Leia tells her as she collects their cups and kettle. “She’s hurting and she wants someone else to hurt more. Personally, I gave up on that a long time ago. Lashing out at him doesn’t bring anyone back.”

She kisses the top of Rey’s head and takes the platter back inside. Rey feels like crying. No matter what they try to do together, Leia ends up walking away in pain. And she feels for Phasma, too, despite her hard demeanor. Her agony at the loss of her loved one is ripping her apart. No one deserves to go through that.

Rey rests her chin on her palm and watches the still little guest house next to the bamboo. Whatever Phasma says, Ben doesn’t deserve this either. Somehow it is __his anguished expressions and wasted features that affect her the most. Rey has felt the despair she sees in him. It pulls her back to a place she left a long time ago.

Making a split-second decision, she throws her legs over the side of the bench and walks over the cobblestone path to the guest house porch. Gently but firmly, she knocks. And waits.

She doesn’t expect him to answer, given his track record with people who come to call. But he does. The door creaks open and Ben looks down at her, at a young woman almost half his height. Rey shivers, feeling that dark, unpleasant energy again.

She swallows down her nerves and manages a small smile. “I’m Rey.”

He chews his lip, considering her. “You came with Luke.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

He waits, clearly wondering what it is she wants.

She takes a breath and loosens her shoulders.

“Would you like to go have a coffee with me?”


	3. Coffee

Rey was going to call a taxi, but Ben points to his car in the driveway. Rey isn’t sure she wants to drive with someone so clearly preoccupied, even if it is in the most magnificent car she has ever seen. She chooses not to voice her concern, however, and sits inside, waiting with a pounding heart for him to walk around to the driver’s side and start the engine. He throws the gear shirt in reverse and speeds out and away. Rey is almost too nervous to enjoy the hum of the v12 engine or the car’s quick, graceful movements as they swerve around bends in the road and then zigzag through traffic. Ben stares ahead, unblinking, his jaw tense and knuckles white. Rey wonders if he’s intending on driving them straight off the nearest cliff.

“Hey, are you okay?” Rey asks as he twists the steering wheel with his fists while they wait at a stop light.

Ben grunts but doesn’t respond further. Rey looks ahead, deciding to finish out the ride in silence. She secretively eyes the details of his car; the sleek leather, powerful speakers, controls to a sunroof. The engine rumbles deliciously as he speeds up. She wonders how far right the needle of that speedometer has been pushed…

Ben catches her grinning while she scans the interior. It takes him thirty long seconds before realizing that she is impressed by his car. His internal temper tantrum is syphoned away and replaced instantly with shock. He has no clue what to do with that information.

They pull into a little hole in the wall coffee shop between a bookstore and an art studio. Ben swings open his door the moment as he kills the engine and walks purposefully around the car.

Rey thinks he is going straight inside, so preoccupied that he has forgotten he has her along, and wonders if this was such a good idea. But he continues all the way around to her door and opens it for her. He waits for her to scramble out, shuts it, and marches up the concrete stairs without another look at her.

Rey follows him up and tries to catch his eye as she passes the door he holds for her, but Ben forcibly looks anywhere but at her. She enters the small, cozy shop and breathes in the rich smell of coffee. She admires the paintings spaced along the wall.

Ben asks her what she wants, and she shrugs timidly.

“I’m not sure. Luke and I only had tea back home, I’m still trying things out.”

Ben gives her an odd look.

“Finn got me an iced decaf last time,” she says. “I guess that would be okay.”

Frowning, he turns to the barista and places an order. He waves away Rey’s money and nods toward the tables. Rey steps back and selects a spot by the window in view of a blossoming crab apple tree.

A few minutes later, Ben walks over with two mugs and sets one down in front of her. Rey’s drink is lighter in color than his. He watches her take a sip.

“Mm chocolate!” She grins at him. “Is this a mocha, then?”

Ben looks down to his own drink without comment, his cheeks slightly pink.

“So,” says Rey, cozying up to her drink and leaning forward. “Have you lived in the city all your life?”

Ben shrugs. “Mostly, yeah.”

Rey says, “How do you like it?”

“The city?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s alright.”

Silence.

Rey suppresses a snicker and looks out the window at the crab apple tree. She takes another sip of her mocha. The buzz of other people’s conversations fills the silence between them. Rey is surprised when Ben is the one to speak next.

“Thanks for this,” he says to his mug.

Rey doesn’t know what to say. Thanks for what? The outing he drove them to? The coffee he paid for?

“I’m glad you wanted to come,” Rey says with a smile he won’t look at. “I haven’t been to this place before. Finn and Rose have been showing me around the last couple weeks and it’s been great. I’m loving the city.”

Ben nods with a deadpan expression.

“Must be the worst, living in the sticks with that old hermit,” he says.

Rey laughs and his eyes flit up to hers.

“It’s not, really,” she says. “We have a very peaceful life together. But it’s nice to have a change.”

Ben looks at her quizzically.

“Who are you, anyway?” he says. “I know Luke never had a kid.”

Rey can feel heat rise in her cheeks. “Luke took me in when I was twelve, after my mom died. He used to know my father, and he was the only one who could take me.”

“Who’s your father?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I haven’t asked.”

Ben is frowning, lost in his own thoughts.

“I was under the impression my uncle was at the monastery for the last ten years.”

Rey sighs and rests her elbow on the table, watching a crab apple blossom flutter in the wind. “He was going to go, and then I came along. Instead, we built our own place in the mountains so he could raise me and still do what he loves.”

Ben doesn’t say anything else. He’s fixed on his coffee while Rey gazes out the window. She glances at him every thirty seconds or so, wondering what he’s thinking. She tries to think of something interesting to say. He’s obviously not a small talk kind of person, and unlike other people she has met so far, he doesn’t put much of an effort to make things pleasant. But, she thinks, he doesn’t put on a face or pretend to be in a different mood from the one he is in. Rey decides she likes that.

“Would you like to go for a walk along the Oakside River?” Rey asks. “It’s within walking distance from here. Finn took me the other day. It has a lovely path.”

Ben looks surprised to receive a second invitation. He assumed he blew it a long time ago.

After a brief pause, he says, “Okay,” gets up, and pulls her chair back so she can stand from the table.

They take the paved path down to the riverside, passing mounted daisy bouquets every few yards. Rey smiles at each one of them while Ben tries to figure out how to be better conversation.

“What is it you – _do_ – out there in the mountains?” he asks.

Rey laughs and Ben looks at her like he’s trying to decide if she’s laughing at him or if he said something funny.

Rey shrugs broadly, taking great happy strides down the path. “Oh, chores and things, keeping up on the house, repairing stuff that’s broken. We garden for vegetables and pick some wild plants too. I do a lot of hunting and cooking. I used to have to study and take tests to keep up on homeschooling. I still read quite a bit. And sketch. I practice Aikido, too. I don’t know, I suppose the rest of the time we meditate.”

“I used to do that with him,” says Ben, “When I was a kid.”

Rey grins serenely, the bright sun a halo around her body. She stoops over and picks up a large stone to toss in the river’s gentle current. The smile on her face following the great splash is so endearing that even Ben can’t suppress a small smile himself.

“You’re kind of unusual, aren’t you?” he says.

Rey giggles. “That makes two of us, then.”

Ben continues to smirk, walking alongside her like he doesn’t quite understand what is happening, how he got there, and where he is going. Rey skips along, bending over to collect fun-shaped stones, and picking leaves off the large oaks.

“So, what kinds of jobs have you had?” she asks. “Everyone I meet always seems to be working.”

His smirk fades, though Rey’s back is turned and doesn’t notice.

“I’ve done a lot of things,” he says. He waits for her to look at him before continuing, “I worked for one business for a long time until recently. It was called the First Order.”

Rey nods politely.

“You haven’t heard if it?”

Rey shakes her head. “I haven’t heard of most people’s jobs. Finn’s been teasing me for days for not knowing what a barista was. That’s actually what got me my first visit to a coffee place. Anyway, _I_ might be starting my first job soon.”

She holds up her chin and grins pridefully.

Ben stares ahead blankly for a while. Luke hasn’t told her. No one has told her.

She keeps trying to catch his eye, so he sighs and says, “Alright, I’ll bite. What is this new job you found?”

“An Aikido instructor at Kenobi Studios.”

Ben has her full attention again. “You can teach Aikido?”

That was the reaction she was digging for. She grins ear to ear as she nods enthusiastically. “I think so! I’m going to try it out, anyway. The master there wants me to be his apprentice and work one on one with him when we’re not teaching. I’m really excited!”

Ben’s small smile is back. “That’s – great.”

Rey tilts her head and bends over into his line of sight.

“You look like you want to say something.”

“No,” says Ben. “It’s just unexpected – you talking about all these things I used to do as a kid with Luke.”

“Well, if you’d like, you can practice with me any time. I’d love the company.”

Ben hesitates. “That’s alright…”

“You sure?”

Ben nods. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.”

“Oh.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes until they come to a great curved bridge.

Rey puts her hand on one of the large base stones and says, “Are you ready to go back?”

“Yes.”

The way back is quiet. Rey notices the scowl from before has returned to Ben’s face. She exhales a dejected huff.

Then she thinks of something.

“You have a beautiful car,” she says. “Have you had it long?”

“About a year,” he says, half-interested.

“How fast can it go?”

A shadow of a smile touches his face. Rey purses her lips against her grin.

“Do you want to drive it?” he asks as they come back up the hill in view of his black _Kessel Falconer_ in the coffee shop parking lot.  

Rey gazes hungrily at the keys dangling from his finger.

“Well, I'd love to…” she says. “But I don’t have a license yet.”

Ben looks at her blankly. “Right. Of course you don’t.”

“You could show me though.”

She has to fight the urge to laugh at the double take he gives her. He doesn’t say a word as he gets back inside, doesn’t say a word as he drives them back the way they came. Rey is starting to think he isn’t going to take her bait, wondering if she was being cheesy, and now he wants to get rid of her as quick as possible.

Then, suddenly, he pulls off on the interstate exit. Rey looks at him excitedly as the engine revs, and he almost succeeds in holding back a smile.

He swerves past a cluster of cars until the way ahead is clear. The engine climbs as they go faster and faster. Rey keeps looking at the speedometer: 85…95…100…

“Aaa okay, that’s enough…” says Rey, laughing nervously.

He ignores her, a smirk solid on his face now.

110…

“You’re going to get pulled over…” says Rey.

Ben shrugs.

“I’m serious!” she squeals.

“Okay,” he says, and slows back down to take an exit back to town.

The drive back home is much more enjoyable than the drive out. Ben’s mood is considerably lighter, and Rey can’t stop grinning.  

When they pull up Leia’s driveway at last, Luke comes out the front door to greet Rey – and stops in his tracks when he sees who she is with. Eyeing Ben sideways, he approaches Rey with something behind his back.

“Surprise,” Luke says. He hands her a brand-new cell phone.

Rey’s eyes grow large.

“So we can stay in touch when you run off,” he says.

Rey examines the phone with great interest. “Wow, thank you, uncle!”

She hugs him around his middle. Luke frowns as, instead of coming with him through the front door, she goes with Ben around back toward the guest house. Ben is just as surprised as Luke.

Ben starts to slow down as he and Rey walk the garden path, wondering where it is she thinks she’s going. Before they reach his house, Rey sits down on the bench by the bird feeders, still playing with her phone.

“Will you teach me how to use this?” she asks him.

Rey supposes the noise he makes is a laugh, though she was starting to wonder if he was capable of it. He’s definitely making fun of her. But she doesn’t really mind. He sits next to her, careful to keep distance between their legs.

“Contacts are here,” he says, taking the phone from her and pointing. “See, Luke already put some numbers in for you. And this is your texts.”

“How do I get your number in here?”

The phone slips from his hands and Rey pushes her legs together to keep it from falling to the ground.

He is looking her in that alarmed way again, like she’s a new species of person, maybe one with three or four heads. She holds the phone in front of her with both hands.

He clears his throat and presses the add button on the screen and types in his number.

“So I hit ‘done’ now?”

“First put in a name.”

She smirks at him. “I don’t think you ever told me your name.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he scolds.

She hands him the phone and puts her hands up innocently. He shakes his head and types: Ben Solo.

Rey admires the new contact on her phone. She leans back on the bench and sighs contentedly. She tilts her head toward him and grins. He doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

“This was fun,” says Rey.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Ben sits up and looks back at the manor, where Luke is watching them through the back window.

“Everything okay?” Rey asks.

A crease appears between his eyes, he looks down at his lap, and nods.

Rey’s eyes travel over the brace on his right wrist and the scowl on his face that settles once more. There’s something remarkably handsome about him, Rey realizes. It’s not just one feature. It’s everything combined; features, expressions, the things he says, the way he says them. Rey blushes, but he doesn’t notice. The scowl isn’t going away this time.

“Can I – do you - ?” Rey takes a breath, looking at his wrist and then into his eyes sincerely. “Is there anything I can do, Ben? To make you feel better?”

The forwardness of this question is almost as shocking as the offer itself. Ben’s eyes dart back and forth between hers, maybe really and truly seeing her for the first time. And who exactly is he seeing? He doesn’t even know her. Some girl Luke decided to raise, apparently. Some girl he just spent half an afternoon with.

It’s been a long time since he’s looked at a girl like this. Noticed things like eyelashes and freckles. A low ball of panic begins to tumble in his gut. He doesn’t know her, but she is a real person sitting in front of him. Unafraid. Not angry or disgusted. And if that’s not enough, she is offering compassion.

It feels like a blanket of needles has been draped around his body. He is absolutely certain this is a trick, and the certainty is painful. This real person that he doesn’t know seems nice. Trick or not, has anyone ever said something like that to him?

The world closes in around him as he begins to process through the dingy, muddy space between a person like him and a girl like her.

“No,” Ben manages to say.

“But thank you,” he adds.

The corners of Rey’s lips curve upward as she regards him with a kind but sad expression. Ben shifts uncomfortably. Rey watches him in silence a moment longer and then sits up. She pockets her new phone and stands.

“I’m going to go inside and help with dinner. You’re welcome to – ”

Ben shakes his head. “Thanks, but no. Here, let me see that again.”

She hands him her phone, he types something on it, then gives it back to her.

“Good night,” he says, rises from the bench, and returns to the guest house.

Rey goes back to the manor, trying to figure out how to unlock her phone to see what he did. When the screen changes at last, her text messages are open. There’s a text sent to ‘Ben Solo’.

It says: “Rey”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure hope people are enjoying this so far :) Lots more to come!


	4. Guest House

Rey receives her first phone call on her new phone the following morning. It’s from Finn. She is so excited she accidentally hangs up on him. When he calls her back, it turns out he was trying to invite her to a baseball game that afternoon. She accepts enthusiastically and goes about her morning with a skip in her step.

Luke puts on a smile when Rey says goodbye and leaves with Finn a couple hours later. He tells her to be safe and smart. Then Leia catches him frowning at the front door that had closed behind Rey at least five minutes ago.

“She’ll be fine,” Leia muses. “Finn’s a good kid.”

“It’s not that,” he says. “She’s…happy here.”

“Tragic, isn’t it?”

Luke scoffs. “She doesn’t realize the city can be just as dangerous as it is fun. I worry keeping her safe and secluded all these years has made her a bit naïve.”

“I don’t think she’s naïve, Luke. She’s smart, she hasn’t forgotten what the world is like. I think it’s great she isn’t withdrawn and skeptical. Let her be happy here.”

“Not that I could stop her,” Luke says. “She’s a grown woman now.”

“She’s lovely, Luke, really lovely. I can’t imagine what she would have been like if you hadn’t taken her in, if she had had to fend for herself…It breaks my heart to picture that girl hardened and lonely.”

“I’m confident she would have been just as lovely,” says Luke. “Her strength and light are her own. It’s me who would have been hardened and lonely.”

Leia laughs. “That’s for sure. I’m grateful you found each other, and that you’re both here with me now. Thank you for staying.”

           

Rey returns home after 11:00 that night. She is pleasantly surprised that Luke didn’t wait up for her. She had an enchanting time with Finn and Rose at the game and then at the nightclub they took her to afterwards. She tried her first adult beverage and was very pleased with herself for not going overboard. Everyone she met was so nice and welcoming. She already has three new contacts in her phone.

Rey flops on her bed, still buzzing from all the excitement. She lays on top of her blankets, still wearing the lavender night dress Rose lent her, staring up at the ceiling. A picture on the wall catches her eye and she sits up to look at it. It’s a framed sketch of a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair. She crawls over her bed to take a closer look. In the bottom right corner are the initials _O.W.K._

Rey grins and reaches for her own sketch book on the nightstand. She begins to draw a long cocktail dress from behind, belonging to a woman with much longer, thicker hair than hers. She hums a song she heard at the nightclub.

After a while she puts the pencil down and absentmindedly gazes out her window to where the garden waits in the dark. The branches of a birch tree flutter lightly against the glass. She turns to a blank page in her book and draws that too: the window, the curtain, and the branch. She watches it continue to flutter. Then she notices a small, square light in the distance. She swipes the curtain to the side and looks out. A single light is on in the guest house.  

Ben is awake. Rey picks up her phone off the bed, opens her contacts, and looks at his name.

Finn calls about twelve people an hour, it seems. She could call Ben. Would that be okay? Especially so late at night?

Rey feels like she’s at a disadvantage in situations like this, having lived her teenage years away from society. She hasn’t learned how the game works yet, how you reach out to someone you don’t want to be a stranger anymore. Her instincts say, _just call him,_ but from what she’s seen so far of human behavior, it’s usually more complicated than that.

She doesn’t know if Ben likes her at all, but she rather enjoyed their little outing yesterday. Yes, it was awkward, but not in a bad way. Her interactions with most people have been awkward. She doesn’t really know what she’s doing. But it turns out she isn’t really much of an introvert, not as much as she would have expected, being away from people for so long.

In ways Rey would never be able to explain out loud, Ben does have a kind of charm to him. More than once today she found herself thinking about him. Remembering the few small smiles she saw and thinking about how much she’d like to see them again.

She liked how surprised he seemed by almost everything she said or did. It made her feel interesting, unexpected, and like she isn’t the only one out of her element. Surely he wouldn’t have taken her on that drive, or showed her the phone, or given her his number if he didn’t like her a little.

And why would he give her his number to begin with if he didn’t want her to contact him? No, she thinks, it isn’t so complicated. It doesn’t have to be.

She taps on her text messages and finds the conversation that’s already been started.

“Rey” _Yesterday 5:01 PM_

She types: “Knock knock” and hits send.

Nothing for a minute, and then three dots tell her he’s replying.

“Who’s there?”

She giggles and sends, “Me, if you’d like.”

The three dots remain on the screen for three minutes. Rey waits with her heart pounding in her ears.

Finally, “Okay.”

She lets out a little squeal and scrambles out of bed to find a jacket. She slips out the back door as quietly as possible and makes her way over to the guest house. The flowers she passes smell radiant tonight.

His door is already open; he’s waiting in the door frame. Her heart flutters as she gets closer and sees that astonished look on his face. She really does like surprising him.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

He’s in a dark, baggy T-shirt and work-out shorts. There’s something cozy about his appearance.

“I’m wide awake,” she says as she comes inside. “Want to watch a movie or something?”

“Did Luke have cable in his hermit hut?” he replies, closing the door behind her.

Rey laughs. “No, actually. I hadn’t seen a movie since I was a kid until Finn took me to the theater the other day.”

Rey steps in his living room, which looks perfectly decorated and undisturbed.

“Haven’t really made yourself at home yet, have you?”

Ben shrugs and continues down the hall to the kitchen. “Want some water?”

“Yes, please, I’m parched.”

He pours her a glass and leans against the refrigerator as she moseys around, looking around the dining area.

“This is a nice little place, isn’t it?”

He shrugs again.

“So, what did you do today?” Rey asks, bending over the kitchen counter across from him, giving him her full attention.

He looks like he wants to back away even though he’s already as far back as he can go.

“Just – some things,” he says. “Made some calls. Tying up loose ends. And I’m, uh – thinking of enrolling in aviator school.”

“Really?” Rey exclaims. “That’s great! When do you think you’ll start?”

The corners of his mouth raise as he, once again, can’t help but smirk at her eagerness.

“Well I haven’t applied yet. Still deciding. If I do, it won’t start for a few months.”

“If you’re here still, I’d love to hear all about it. When I was little, actually, the first thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a pilot.”

“Oh,” he says. “That’s actually…me too.”

She grins.

“W-what did you do today?” he says.

“Oh, well Finn and I – ” She stops talking because he frowns.

“What?” she says.

“Nothing, go on.”

“Do you not like him?” she asks.

“Who?”

“Finn.”

Ben doesn’t answer right away. He chews on his lip and doesn’t look her in the eyes.

“I – no, I don’t know him very well,” he says.

“Okay,” she says uncertainly. When he doesn’t elaborate, she continues on. “Well, he and Rose took me to a baseball game. And a new club downtown called ‘The Cantina’.”

He nods, not really paying attention. Now Rey frowns.

“Is something wrong?” she says. “Have I done something to upset you?”

“No, of course not,” He looks alarmed. “I’m sorry, I’m... it’s been a bad couple –”

He closes his eyes for a few seconds and then opens them again. “I’m just not quite sure why you’re here.”

Rey flushes and steps back. “Oh, well I can go if you – ”

“No…” Ben looks miserable. “I only mean – look, I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t really talked to anyone casually for a long time, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Of course I couldn’t tell,” says Rey. “I’ve hardly talked to anyone but Luke in years!”

They stare at each other through several heated seconds. Her mouth twitches. Then his does too.

She lets out a breath and chuckles, sitting down on the bar stool.

“It’s no pressure,” she says thoughtfully. “I just thought maybe we could be friends.”

That astonished look again.

To Rey’s displeasure, as the seconds drag on, his expression doesn’t turn into a smile. He doesn’t nod or show any signs of agreement.

“Do you – not want to?” Rey asks.

He takes in a breath suddenly, like he had momentarily forgotten to breathe. Rey sinks as he shakes his head.

“It’s not a good idea.”

“Oh okay,” says Rey, dejectedly. “I’m sorry. I guess I misunderstood.”

The emotions that usually transform so clearly on Ben’s face have vanished. He steels himself off, throws up a wall, and still, does not meet her eyes.

“I should go,” says Rey.  

Ben looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. He just watches her as she puts her glass in his sink and walks past him to the door.  

Rey leaves his house in a blur and tries not to react to anything until she gets back in her bedroom. Her chest feels so heavy and sunken. It’s a cold disappointment and she feels anxious and embarrassed. She knew she was lacking in certain social skills, but apparently she’s worse off than she thought.

She lays in bed and turns toward the wall so she doesn’t have to see his light on across the garden. She takes a deep breath. She’s just embarrassed. It’s no big deal.

She tries to think about her fun outing with Finn and Rose today. But now it’s tainted, somehow. Sleep then, she thinks. Go to sleep, Rey. It won’t matter so much in the morning.


	5. Eve

Six days pass and Rey doesn’t see Ben once.

It’s Friday and Finn and Rose made plans to take Rey out to dinner after work. Tomorrow is Hux’s funeral. Rey didn’t know him, of course, but Finn had told her it would be nice if she would come. He and Rose will be there, and it shouldn’t take very long because to Finn’s knowledge, there won’t be many people attending. Both of Hux’s parents are dead and most of the people who really knew him haven’t seen him for fifteen years or more. And there are no friends in the business he worked for.

“The First Order?” Rey had asked.

“How did you know that?” Finn stared at her.

“I – heard it somewhere.”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact.” Finn had an unusually dark look on his face. “The First Order has negatively affected nearly everyone in this city in one way or another. Don’t say the name out loud to anyone in _your_ family, that’s for sure.”

 

Rey has done a fairly good job of keeping Ben out of her thoughts this week, especially since she met with the Master of the Aikido studio twice to discuss the details of her employment. Her new boss, a man called Jacen Kenobi, told her she could start work as soon as the new season starts. In a little over a month, she will have her first job!

At 6:00 sharp, Finn honks his horn, and Rey quickly kisses Luke and Leia goodbye and runs out the door. Finn and Rose take her to their favorite Vietnamese restaurant and introduce her to one of Rose’s coworkers, a handsome Greek man who is completing an internship. Rey thinks he is nice, but there isn’t the magical spark that she knows Finn and Rose are hoping for.

In fact, she’s rather glad for the evening to be over, when Finn drops her off at half past 8. She has been feeling a bit tired out from all the action in the last couple weeks since her arrival. So many new things in such a concentrated amount of time.

Rey slings her bag over a chair in her room and drapes over the width of her bed. She thinks of how Rose’s coworker pulled Rey’s chair back for her when they stood up to leave. Ben did that, when they went out together. Rose’s coworker smiles constantly, ear to ear, makes jokes often, and seems like a genuinely happy person. Ben is anything but. Rey wonders why she keeps thinking about him.

She picks up her sketchbook and pours over that for the next couple hours until her eyes become droopy. She puts away her things, changes into pajama shorts and a tank top and lies back on the light, comfy blanket. She whispers goodnight to the sketch on the wall and closes her eyes.

Then her phone buzzes on her nightstand.

She reaches for it. It’s a text from Ben.

Her heart starts hammering as she fumbles with the phone to open the message.

“Are you awake?”

Rey responds, “Yes, I am.”

He doesn’t answer. There aren’t any three typing dots either.

Rey frowns and sends, “Are you okay?”

Instantly: “No.”

Rey sits up in bed and looks out her window to the guest house. That one light is on.

She returns to her phone. “Can I help?”

A minute passes before she receives his next message. “No, and it’s late. I’ve been drinking. Not thinking clear. Sorry.”

Rey looks back at the light in his window, like it might have answers.

“It’s okay,” she sends.

“Ok.” Then, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She waits but again, he doesn’t reply.

She sends, “Do you want some company?”

Long pause. “I’m really fucked up.”

“You mean drunk?”

“No. Fucked up.”

Rey sighs. He isn’t any easier to talk to over text than he is in person.

She sends, “I’ll be in the garden.”     

She puts on her robe and for the second time this week, sneaks out the back door at night. She follows the dim fairy lights to the bamboo, where Ben is already waiting for her on the bench by the bird feeders. His elbows are on his knees and his face is in his hands.

When she approaches, he sits up and scoots over. Rey sits down beside him and tilts her head, observing him. The moonlight looks good on him. His hair almost covers his eyes and he sits tall above her. His energy is masculine, but troubled. Rey bites her lip with concern. She isn’t sitting very close to him, but the smell of liquor is unmistakable.

“What happened?” she says.

Ben puts his face back in his hands.

“Ben?”

His voice is muffled by his hands. “I’m just – I’m really fucked up.”

“Okay…do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I can’t, I…” He sits up again and cranes his neck back, inhaling the night air.

“Did something happen today?”

He shakes his head. “His…funeral is tomorrow.”

Rey suddenly doesn’t have words. She watches him switch back and forth from bending over, holding his head, to sitting up looking at the stars.

“And you can’t go…” she says softly.

Ben puts his fist against the bridge of his nose and scrunches his face like he’s in pain. Rey wishes she knew what to do.

“I’m very sorry,” she says.

He puts his fist down suddenly and looks at her, perhaps for the first time straight in the eyes, with an anguished expression. He breathes out tremulously.

Rey swallows, almost a gulp. She sees his hands are shaking in his lap.

“Please tell me how I can help…”

He mutters something but she can’t hear him. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

It’s Rey’s turn to be surprised. She watches him; he doesn’t look away, but he doesn’t say anything else. Rey tries to think of something to tell him, some words of comfort, but everything sounds stupid in her head.

He drags his hand through his hair, roughly, and lets his fist fall back on his leg.

“Rey…” His voice is husky, and Rey notes this is the first time he’s said her name out loud. “I’m sorry…for last time.”

Rey flinches at the memory, feeling suddenly on edge. She takes a breath and says carefully: “Did I do something to offend you?”

Ben shakes his head. “No, you couldn’t  – ”

He stops talking abruptly as though he’s being strangled. He clears his throat.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath.

Rey’s heartbeat is louder in her ears than his voice is. Ben runs his hand over the stubble on his face and returns it to his lap. Both hands are still shaking.

Rey moves a few inches closer to him, but his whole body stiffens so she stops instantly. He looks utterly terrified. What is the matter with him?

“I have so many fucking problems,” he says, irritably. “This is so embarrassing. I – could you just – please give me some space?”

Rey slides back over on the bench. She feels guilty and anxious and just wants to fix whatever is happening right now.

“Look,” she says slowly, trying to remain calm. “Just tell me what you’re thinking. That’s all… If you want me to go away, I’ll go away. If you want me to stay, I will. We can talk, or not, whatever you want. Just tell me.”

He looks bewildered. He shakes his head. “I don’t…” he takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Okay…” she says. A second rejection in a week. Rey’s heart pulsates heavily. Now what is she supposed to do?

“Fuck,” he mutters again. “I’m so sorry.”

Rey waits a moment and tries to regain courage.

“Should I leave you alone, then?” she asks.

“No,” he groans. “Please don’t go.”

“What can I do? Can I give you a hug?”

Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t this. He positively jumps in the air, like a blow horn had gone off behind him. His tall form scampers upright, like the bench had caught fire. Rey watches in shock.

“Woah, it’s okay!” she says. “Ben. Look at me.”

His face is a deep puce, even in the moonlight.  

“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to,” she promises.

His bewildered expression is no longer a cute quirk, now it’s completely heartbreaking. He stands there, looking like he’s patiently waiting for the ground to swallow him up.

Rey is at a total loss.

She stands and faces him, looking up at his shameful face.

“I promise I won’t ever touch you unless you ask me to,” she says. “Okay?”

His dark eyes, now bright with moonlight, grow wide. He nods over and over again, looking down at the ground.

“Okay,” he croaks.

“Is that why you didn’t want to be friends with me?” she asks.

He nods but then shakes his head. He opens his mouth to speak but can’t seem to figure out what to say.

Finally, “I’m so fucked up.”

“That’s okay,” says Rey.

He sways slightly, his eyes bleary and unfocused.

“Ben,” she says. “When is the last time you slept?”

He looks at her wearily.

“You can trust me,” she says.

He stands before her, a mass of tension. The energy of it threatens to swallow Rey whole.

“Okay,” he says.

“Come inside with me.” She steps around him, giving him plenty of space. She walks in the yellow glow of the lantern nearby and steps on the porch of the guesthouse. She can see his shadow in front of her, showing that he’s following behind.

Rey goes inside and walks down the hall that contains the eastern facing rooms. His bedroom is one of these, she knows, because they face her window. It’s the one with the light still on.

It looks like the only room he’s lived in since he arrived. All of his possessions are there, it’s clear nothing else in this house belongs to him. Some clothes are folded up on the floor – he hasn’t used the dresser, a lap top is open on the small table, his phone is on his pillow, the bed is unmade. A bottle of bourbon is mostly empty on the nightstand.

Rey turns around. He is right behind her, looking blankly past her. He seems to have turned off, somehow. His face looks empty, like it did the last time she was in this house. Rey doesn’t like it, but at least his hands aren’t shaking anymore.   

“Go ahead and get undressed for bed,” Rey says. “I’m going to make some tea.”

She goes back down the hall and into the little kitchen, taking the bottle of bourbon with her and pouring the rest down the drain. She roots around for a kettle and tea mugs. She finds a modest collection of tea bags in the pantry and even a jar of fresh, local honey.

When the tea is ready, she returns to his room and knocks on the open door. He is sitting on the side of his bed, dressed down to boxers and a T shirt, looking at his phone.

Rey sets the mug on the nightstand and pulls over a chair from the corner of the room.

Ben puts his phone down, face up, and lies straight back, across the width of the bed. He was in his text messages. The top of the screen says “Hux”. There are only two exchanges. The first, from Ben, dated some three weeks ago says, “Where are you?” The second, from Hux, says, “Out back.”

Ben says to the ceiling, “I feel sick.”

Rey says, “Have some tea.”

He moves lengthwise on the bed and takes a few sips. Rey stands from the chair and picks up the twisted blanket on his bed. Ben watches her every move.

She shakes it out and drapes it neatly over the bed. She pulls it up to him and drops it in his lap, careful not to brush him. He can hardly keep his eyes open. He shuffles down to lie back with his head on the pillow. His T shirt comes up a bit, showing a few inches of his stomach.

Rey frowns. His skin is stretched over his muscles, like someone who has lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time.

Rey sits back on her chair, watching him for a while. Heavy black shadows are under his eyes.

“It’s okay to go to sleep,” she says softly. “I’ll be here if you need anything.”

A sleepy groan leaves his throat and he finally gives in. Rey turns off the light on his nightstand, though it doesn’t make much of a difference with the moon still shining outside. Rey tries to close the curtain behind his bed without disturbing him. She can now see a dim light on in her own bedroom across the garden. She returns to the chair by his bed.

She watches his chest rise and fall for a while until her own sleepiness catches up with her. Her brain is too sore to think. She vaguely wonders what she should do in the morning. The funeral is at 10. How is she supposed to get up and go to that, knowing he’s here in whatever condition?

Her eyelids close as she curls up on the chair, resting her head against the soft armrest. She could stay just a little while longer.


	6. The Lotus

Before the sun rises, Rey wakes from a painful crick in her neck. She opens her bleary eyes and waits, disoriented, for them to focus. She realizes with a start that she is still curled up in the chair in Ben’s room.

Rey releases her cramped legs and stretches. She rubs her eyes and looks over to the bed where Ben is still sleeping. Even in sleep he looks exhausted, worn out from days of not resting, and entirely spent from a long night of drinking.

She takes her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. 6:30.

She stands up and carefully steps out of the room. Yawning, she makes her way to the kitchen, takes a tall glass from a shelf, fills it with water, and places it on Ben’s nightstand, along with two aspirin. Then she jogs across the chilly garden and slips back inside the manor. She hears clanking in the kitchen.

She peaks in. Luke is taking various pots and pans from a cabinet.

“Ah, good morning, little Rey,” he says, turning around. “I was going to wake you in about half an hour. We need to get an early start – the funeral is on the other side of town. Eggs or pancakes?”

Rey yawns loudly. “I’m not hungry, thanks. It’s not a very nice day for a funeral, is it?”

The fresh sunrise begins to illuminate the sky. Thick, dark clouds swirl ominously above.

“No, rain all day. You sure?”

“Yeah,” says Rey, massaging the back of her neck. “I don’t feel very well. Had a rough night of sleep.”

Luke steps around the kitchen island and puts a hand on her forehead.

“I’m okay.” Rey shoos him away.

“Are you up for this?” Luke asks. “Leia will understand if you want to stay home.”

“No, I’ll go,” says Rey. “But I’d like to come home straight afterward.”

“You got it.” Luke flicks the underside of her chin affectionately with his pointer finger.

This small gesture registers with Rey in a way it never has before. She realizes, while watching him bustle about in the kitchen, how much she and Luke express themselves with physical touch. It’s how they reassure each other, comfort each other, show love, appreciation. Even Leia, whom she has only known for a couple of weeks, is always kissing her head and holding her hand. Rey hadn’t really thought of it until now, after last night.

The thought of the sad, weary, drunken Ben from the night before makes her heart ache. She absentmindedly rubs the left side of her chest. It feels extra sore from worrying all night.

Three quarters of an hour later, Rey, Luke, and Leia pile into Leia’s car and drive across town to the funeral. They are the first guests to arrive.

Phasma is alone in the building, arranging flowers on the entrance table. Rey steps inside after Luke and admires the beauty of the small room. Phasma must have come sometime in the night to decorate. Rows of potted trees line the hall at each row all the way to the center podium and Rey smells lovely tinctures of pine. Little strings of light hang from the ceiling that glisten from the dark wood like a night sky. There are old pictures of Hux on the wall. Most of them are with Phasma.

“Thank you for coming,” says Phasma. Her voice is tired and course.

“How can we help?” asks Leia.

Rey helps Phasma finish setting up the flowers. Luke and Leia arrange the decor on the front table where Hux’s urn rests. When they’re finished, the room has a somber, peaceful energy. By 10:00, all the guests have come and taken their seats. Rey notices that Finn was right, not many people came. Maybe a dozen total. But Phasma doesn’t seem surprised or disappointed. She stands at the front of the room and thanks everyone for coming.

Phasma conducts the ceremony herself. Rey is impressed she is able to do it. It turns out Phasma is a brilliant writer and speaker; she delivers a beautiful eulogy. Rey didn’t know Hux, but by the end of it, she feels like she did. Her heart breaks for Phasma. He was clearly everything to her.

Phasma invites the guests to come up to say something about Hux; some words, a story, or a prayer if they’d like. A few people, neighbors and old childhood friends, do. Nothing profound or elaborate, but there’s something sweet and wholesome about this small gathering, the gentle room, the peaceful pauses. Besides, Phasma has enough to say about him to make up for the numbers.

Now Phasma invites everyone to join her at the front of the room, where the long table holds Hux’s urn. Small lotus-shaped candle holders of various colors sit along the front of the urn in a single line. Each of them holds a white tea candle.

Phasma says, “I thought each of us could light a candle and take a moment in silence to remember him and tell him he is loved. Blow it out when you’re ready and take the candle home to remember him by. There’s plenty for everyone.”

Rey kneels before her candle like she is getting ready to meditate back home. She had selected a light blue lotus that holds the glow of the candle beautifully. The gentle patter of rain on the roof is perfect. The room is darker than normal for the time of day. Rey thinks of Phasma’s lovely words about Hux from before, and whispers under her breath, “We never met, but I see how people cared for you. This is from Ben, as well: May you be peaceful, always.”

She blows out her candle and holds the lotus to her heart. Everyone else does the same. Phasma holds her yellow lotus to her lips.

“Thank you, everyone,” Phasma says. “We both thank you.”

As the guests file out of the room, Rey looks back at the table, at the left-over lotus candles. Rey picks up a deep red one and slips it in her pocket.

The drive home is peaceful and silent, aside from the rain pattering on the car.

At some point in the journey, Rey watches from the back seat as Leia reaches for Luke’s hand over the center console. Leia lets out a great sigh.

“Do you think Han would have preferred something like that?” she asks him.

“I doubt it.” Luke laughs. “He would have thought it a bunch of unnecessary nonsense. Your celebration was perfect, Leia. You knew him well. Just some friends coming over to catch up, is all. Nothing frilly.”

“Alright.” She laughs through her sniffle. “It sure was beautiful, though. Phasma put so much thought into it. I know she comes off as hard and insensitive sometimes, but she really feels things very deeply. I love the candles.”

She holds her purple lotus to eye level. “I’m going to put mine on top of my bedroom mantle.”

When they arrive back home, Rey tells Luke she’s going to the garden to meditate. He hands her his umbrella.

“I hope you feel better,” he says. “Call if you need anything. Leia and I are going to bring some lunch over to Phasma’s place.”

He puts his arms around her and hugs her longer than usual. He whispers above her ear, “You’re so special, little Rey.”

Rey smiles and waves goodbye to Leia as she walks around back to the garden. She goes to her usual bench by the bird feeders. The plants around are drenched in rain water. The rain taps on her umbrella and she closes her eyes, breathing in the fresh, watery scent of cherry blossoms and lilacs. She had been wrong before. It is the perfect day for a funeral.

Several minutes later Rey senses a presence to her left. She opens her eyes. Ben is standing in the rain without a jacket or umbrella, his wet hair hanging in his eyes.

“Can I join you?” he says.

Rey grins at him. “Please do.”

He sits beside her and takes a long, deep breath. Rey scoots next to him so they can share her umbrella. They sit in companionable silence for about fifteen minutes, until thunder rumbles above and Rey and Ben open their eyes at the same time.

“Do you want to come inside?” says Ben.

“Sure.”

She follows him in the guest house and into the kitchen where he starts some tea. His mug from last night is in the sink along with the glass she put by his bed this morning.        

Ben still looks downcast, but the circles under his eyes aren’t as prominent. He reaches across the bar between them and places Rey’s tea in front of her.

“Thank you,” she says.

He comes around the counter and sits on the bar stool next to her. He props his elbow on the counter and faces her.

“How was it?” he says.          

“The funeral? It was beautiful.”

He nods and takes a drink from his mug.

“I brought you something.” She reaches in her jacket pocket and pulls out the red-colored lotus candle.

Thunder rumbles louder outside as he picks it up and holds it in both his hands. Rey notices he took off his wrist brace.

“The guests took a moment of silence to sit before a candle and honor him,” Rey says. “I thought you might want one of your own. To say goodbye.”

Ben looks at her impassively. He nods, his jaw tight.

“Thanks.”

Rey puts both hands on her warm tea mug and takes another drink.

The thunder rumbles again and the rain picks up outside.

“Well,” Rey says with a smile. “I think it’s the perfect day to stay in, cozy up, and watch a movie. Don’t you?”

The corners of his mouth turn up slightly. “If that’s what you want.”

“Leia must have a collection here somewhere,” she says, opening up some cabinets in the living room. “Yes, here we go.”

She runs her hands over the titles of the DVDs. “Do you have a preference?”

“None at all,” Ben says, dropping down on the couch in front of the TV.

She picks one out, _Jurassic Park_ , and puts it in the old DVD player. The trailers begin.

“I’ll go make some popcorn,” she says. “I just learned how to do it in the microwave the other day.”

Ben nods, an amused smile on his face.

Rey returns to the living room a few minutes later with a large yellow bowl adorned with large orange letters: “Popcorn”. She puts it on his lap and pulls out a folded blanket from the same cabinet as the movies. She drapes half of it over him and sits next to him on the couch, drawing her legs up under the blanket. She shivers, happily.

Ben reaches over to the remote and starts the movie. Rey feels warm and content, munching on popcorn, watching an old movie in the dim afternoon as the rain streaks down the windows. Her tiredness from this morning seeps back in and her eyelids feel heavy before the movie is even half way through…

When Rey wakes up, the movie is almost over. Her eyes flutter open and she realizes she’s leaning against Ben, her head resting on the side of his arm beneath his shoulder. She sits up and looks at him, blinking away sleep.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

He turns to her. The popcorn bowl is empty in his lap.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

The credits begin to roll, and Rey stretches out her limbs and yawns.  

“Can I stay for dinner?” she asks. “I’d like to make something for us.”

So we’re back to the looks of surprise, Rey thinks.

“I guess…if you want.”

Rey stands up and goes the kitchen. She inspects the fridge, pantry, and cabinets. He doesn’t have much in the fridge, but Leia obviously stocked some nonperishables in the cabinets.

Rey looks back in the living room at Ben, who is still sitting on the couch.

“There’s makings for fettuccini alfredo,” she says. “Would you like that? Some fresh veggies too?”

He stands up and stretches his back. The motion causes a strange fluttering feeling in Rey’s stomach.

“I’ll help you,” he says.

They prepare their dinner together. Rey pours a glass of wine for them to share while they work.

“Are you free tomorrow?” Rey asks, popping a shaving of cheese in her mouth as she stirs the saucepan. “We should go to the market and stock up this kitchen.”

“I can take care of that.” Ben frowns.

“I know,” says Rey with a giggle. “I just find it so exciting – going to a market to pick up food.”

Ben shakes his head. “Is there anything you don’t find exciting?”

“Not so far.” She takes a sip of wine and hands it back to him. “That’s delicious, isn’t it?”

He nods, trying and failing to straighten out his smile.

Rey’s phone buzzes on the counter.

“Will you read me what it says?” Rey asks from the stove.

Ben leans over her phone. “From Luke. He wants to know where you are and if you have dinner plans.”

“Tell him – ”

“I’m not telling him anything.”

Rey scowls at him playfully and wipes her hands off on a towel. She picks up her phone.

“What are you going to say?” asks Ben.

“I’m saying…” Rey says slowly as she types. “I am having dinner at Ben’s, I will see him later.”

“He’s not going to like that.”

Rey sends the message, sets the phone down, and looks at him quizzically.

“How come?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “You have a brain, don’t you? There isn’t a single person you know who is going to be comfortable with you spending time with me.”

Rey looks contemplative. She folds her arms over the counter and leans towards him.

“Are we friends now?” she asks.

He looks a little sad, but not upset. This close, Ben notices, he can see the little golden flecks in Rey’s hazel eyes.

“It’s not a good idea,” he answers.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Ben sits up and leans over his side of the counter as well. He sighs.

“If it’s what you want,” he says.

“It is,” she answers, remaining still.

“You can change your mind at any time.”

“I know.”

A moment of silence passes in which they continue to look at each other across the counter.         

“I’m afraid I’m already not shaping up to be a very good friend,” Ben says softly.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m agreeing to be friends with you.”

Rey snickers but he isn’t smiling. She creases her brows.

“You don’t have to be a very good friend,” she says. “Only yourself.”

He leans back and frowns as he watches her return to the stovetop, where she stirs up the sauce one last time and pours it over the noodles.

Ben rolls his eyes more than once as Rey runs around the kitchen and dining room, finding things with which to garnish the dining room table. The rain had finally stopped so she goes out to the garden to pick some Easter Lilies and places them in a vase in the center of the table. She finds three candles in various drawers and even scatters pine cones of different sizes between the plates.

Ben draws the line when she tries to make an elaborate pattern with parsley on top of the fettuccini.

“We’re just going to eat it anyway,” he says.

Rey laughs and hands him the serving spoon.

“After you,” she says.

           

They are washing dishes when Rey’s phone buzzes again. She opens the phone with her chin and reads the message from Luke.

“An old friend of mine, Lando Calrissian, invited us over for s’mores at his firepit. Coming?”

“Ooh,” says Rey. “That sounds like fun. Ben, do you want to go with us?”

He leans over her shoulder and looks at the text message.

She can tell he’s trying not to be as obvious about his scowls.

“No. Thanks though. Have a good time.”

Rey hesitates, but nods with a smile. They finish the last of the dishes and then Rey and Ben step over to the front door.

“I had a great day with you,” she says, grabbing her rain jacket. “Thanks for being friends with me now. Don't worry about what anyone is going to think. We're going to have lots of fun together.”

He doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. He helps her put on the jacket and then opens the front door for her.

“Goodnight, Rey,” he says.

She grins. She wants to hug him goodbye. She looks at him sweetly and bites her lip over her smile. She settles with a brief wave and sets off on the path back to the manor.


	7. Cabbages and Kings

The day Leia throws a backyard hot tub party is the day Luke claims he’s seen it all.  

“I haven’t been this social in years,” Leia says jovially, as friends and their children pull up her driveway, carrying towels and swimsuits. “Ever since you two came here, it’s like I’m twenty-five again.”

It all started when Rey asked what the giant box was by the side of the house. Leia said she and Han spent most of their twenties in hot tubs and pools and oceans. She looked at her old hot tub with glee, and instead of simply showing Rey what was inside, decided to make a whole thing of it.

Luke refuses to participate, but Rey sees him watching his sister from the kitchen window with a smile on his face. Luke appears to be more fulfilled than Rey’s ever seen him. Seeing his sister happy brings a glow to his eyes that melts her heart.

 Once Finn and Rose show up with a suit for her, Rey decides to try out the enormous hot tub everyone is so excited about. The spitfire jets are much more alarming than the gentle springs she used to soak in back home. But the night is warm and clear, the stars above are bright, and there’s something radiantly peaceful about leaning back with your loved ones, looking up at a moonless night sky.

When Luke sticks his head out of the kitchen window to argue with Leia’s neighbors about the name of a star constellation, Rey remembers something.

“I actually found an app that will tell you their names,” she exclaims. “Let me run inside and grab my phone.”

She wraps herself in a towel and runs back inside. Popping an olive in her mouth from a bowl in the kitchen, she pushes the backdoor open and starts to follow the fairy lights back to the hot tub. The paths diverge and the left one she knows goes across the garden to the guest house. She grins and takes that path instead.

She knocks on Ben’s door and shivers in her towel until he answers.

“It’s like living next to a frat house,” Ben says as a greeting, as the group over at the hot tub cheer at something and follow through with scattered laughter.

“Join us!” says Rey. “There’s plenty of room.”

Ben looks at her like he's waiting for the punch line. He grins sardonically as he shakes his head.

“Have a good night, Rey,” he says, closing the door.           

“What, are you afraid of a little fun?” Rey calls out.

He holds the door ajar and considers her.

“Are you free tomorrow?” he asks.

Rey is acutely aware of the butterflies in her stomach. “Sure, I am!”

“Okay, then,” he says. “Goodnight.”

He closes the door and Rey fights the urge to dance on his porch.

 

Rey wakes up the next morning to a text from Ben saying to meet him at his place when she is ready.

“What are we doing?” she asks with a yawn, standing on his porch, sporting a travel mug of coffee.

“You’ll see.”

He leads her to his car and drives about thirty minutes away where a long, dirt road extends along the edge of town by the farm fields. He stops the car in the middle of the road and shifts the gear to park. Rey looks at him expectantly.

“It’s all yours,” he says, gesturing to the steering wheel.

Ben actually laughs at her big gasp and squeal of excitement.

Rey drives his car for two hours straight. Somehow, Ben doesn’t seem to mind a minute of it; the lurching starts, the awkward stops, and certainly not the high speeds that would have gotten them a hefty fine had they been caught. Rey has the time of her life, testing that magnificent engine for all it’s worth, enjoying the feeling of wind sweeping through her hair.

“Alright, what’s next?” says Rey, who finally pulls to a stop.

Ben looks at her for a minute. This is clearly all he planned. Finally, he shrugs. Rey laughs.

“How about lunch?” she says.

Ben switches places with her and drives her to a panini shop at another hole in the wall across town. He pays for her sandwich before she can take her money out. Finn does that too, sometimes, but this is the first time Rey wonders if she might be on a date.

Ben offers to take her for a drive as they eat, knowing how much she enjoys sightseeing in the city. He was trying to be nice, but it turns out to be more hazardous than he bargained for as he nearly chokes on his food every time she shocks him into laughter with her absurd games.

She started it when they got back in the car with their food, saying lavishly, “As your personal chauffer, Ben Solo, allow me the honor of introducing you to your new city. Take two lefts, a right, and go straight for three blocks. That is the opera house at which we will frequent every third Friday.”

After giving her an odd look, he followed her instructions and pulled up to a construction site outhouse. Rey burst out laughing and said, “Okay, let’s do another one.”

Her directions to the most popular restaurant in town (six blocks ahead and a left) ended up being a boarded-up veterinary office. Her directions to what was sure to become his new hobby was a nail salon. The most reasonable car repair was a McDonalds, the best school for a hundred miles was a hemp shop, and a great place to go roller-skating was the hospital.

At last, holding her sides with laughter, Rey says, “Last but not least, I’ll show you where you should certainly take someone on your first date. It’ll dazzle her, for sure.”

Ben looks sideways at her as he follows her made-up directions. Rey feels too shy to look at him. When he pulls into an archery range, Rey giggles.

There is an awkward silence in the car until Ben finally clears his throat to speak.

“Well,” he says. “After you.”

Rey looks at him to see if he is serious. She blushes furiously as she gets out of the car and accompanies him inside. Rey pretends to be considering which bow to rent while her mind buzzes. So, this is a date, then? She gulps as she realizes suddenly that she doesn’t know how to be on a date.

Apparently, it didn’t seem to matter. Ben doesn’t look like he has a care in the world as he sets up their stations. He puts a paper cover over each of their targets so they can compete. Rey is in her element. Shooting arrows is finally something she doesn’t need to be shown how to do.

The sky is beginning to darken by the time they leave to go back home. Rey keeps their paper targets, vowing to hang them side by side in her room as a memento.

She says goodnight to him in the garden and returns to her room, avoiding Luke’s suspicious stares. And she sits in her bed, looking once again at the light in Ben’s window. She can’t seem to sit still. She’s full of adrenaline. And something else. An excitement, a giddiness that fills her beyond the brim. She wants to go back out there and throw her arms around his neck. Maybe get a first date kiss.

The thought of it sobers her. She stares at his window with her hand cupping her cheek. She shakes her head at herself. It’s not an option right now. But they did have such a lovely day together. It was nice to see him happy.

She hugs her pillow to her, closes her eyes, and falls peacefully to sleep.

           

The following day Rose calls Rey saying she has the day off and wants her to come shopping with her. Rey, tired out from all the activity as of late, tries to decline but Rose won’t hear of it. She promises it will be fun and relaxing.

Aside from all of the clothes Rose made Rey try on, it does turn out to be an enjoyable day. It is the first time Rey has spent any time with Rose without Finn around, and she thinks it is kind of nice having a girlfriend.

In the weeks that follow, despite her ongoing exhaustion, Rey is almost constantly occupied. She is delighted that everyone wants to spend time with her, show her things, take her out to restaurants and shows and tours and whatever else she simply _must_ experience. She’s getting to know Leia and Finn and Rose on a more intimate level and she already feels like they’ve always been part of each other’s lives.

She has noticed a contrast, however, between her time with them and her time with Ben. For one thing it is always separate. He never comes out when they are over and they never tell her to invite him along to anything they do, despite her obvious hints. She’s also learned not to talk about him too much, or at all, in front of anyone. When she gets texts from him in their company, she holds back the urge to tell them about the inside joke he is referencing or burst out in cheers when she received a picture text of his completed application to flight school.

The other difference is a difference of feeling, of emotion. It boils down to a matter of personality, and Rey has grown fond of the contrast. It is one thing to spend the afternoon with Leia, gardening, hosting meetings, running errands, learning how to make jewelry. Leia brings so much love to Rey’s heart it almost makes her cry. To have a woman of no blood relation look at her with such tenderness and pride, to always be patting her hand, kissing her head, and doing things for her… it’s overwhelming at times. It makes her feel like she is Leia’s own family, like she is truly special.

It’s another matter to have adoring friends like Finn and Rose, who seem to have forgotten they only met her a little over a month ago. Rose calls her almost daily. Rey doesn’t always know what to say or what would be interesting to talk about, but Rose treats her like they have been best friends for years and gabs on about anything and everything relevant in her life. Rey has realized from getting to know other people around the city, that not everyone is as genuine or positive like Rose. She brings very little drama to the table, caring only about making the day delightful and sharing it with people she finds delightful. It’s simple and easy. Rey takes it as the highest compliment that Rose would want to include her in her life.

Rey’s friendship with Finn has had a familial angle from the start. As they get to know each other she finds they have much in common; the activities they enjoy, the music they like, the way they think about things. It occurs to her one evening after Finn takes her home from her first amusement park, that she is beginning to feel like he is her incredibly kind, doting brother, similar to the way Luke is like her adoring, affectionate father. The thought of how she’s come to gather up her very own chosen family, after thinking for so many years that family was a luxury she just wasn’t blessed with, is humbling.

But Ben is a different matter altogether. He hasn’t weaseled his way into her soul the way the others have, like burrowing kittens. He doesn’t make time feel like an illusion. While they _are_ feeling more familiar with each other and less hesitant to reach out, Rey feels like there is a barrier between them, a door they can’t seem to open. He isn’t open with her; he guards himself fiercely unless their time together is unquestionably lighthearted. They haven’t delved into the deeper discussions of the universe or gotten carried away late into the night like Rey and Finn and Rose have, surprised at a sunrise they didn’t realize was coming so soon.

Yet deep down, somehow, even without the exclamations of undying devotion or the physical affection or the soul-filled smiles, there is a small, tender space in her heart that Ben, unlike any other, has managed to reach. He doesn’t need to be around all the time or text her every minute for her to feel connected to him. He doesn’t need to hold her hands or swing her around or squeeze her until she can’t breathe for her to feel like she is the best part of his day.

It’s the simplest of things: Ben having her favorite cinnamon tea ready for her when she comes over, becoming accustomed to her decorating the dinner table with exorbitant amounts of accents to the point where he complains when she doesn’t, letting her drive his car, occasionally allowing her to rest against his shoulder while they read or watch movies… these things reach farther and surer than any extravagant gesture from the others ever could. It’s an easy, peaceful kind of affection, laced with excitement and curiosity, but as wholesome and sober as her own relationship with Luke.

Rey’s last day off before her first day of work appears like she had walked straight into a glass door. She realizes that she had forgotten to panic about it, that she hasn’t questioned her worth and abilities thoroughly enough yet, and she’s about to go into the studio realizing now that she has no business teaching anybody anything.

“I’m giving you about two more minutes of this,” says Ben, swirling the bowl of punch on the garden picnic table, “and then we’re going out. Any more nasty, untrue things you have to say about yourself? Or are you wrapping it up?”

“No, that’s it,” says Rey, pouting with her arms crossed.   

“You’re going to be great, Rey,” he says. “Relax.”

They drive to an outdoor shopping strip and walk along the sidewalk, looking for ice cream. Rey begins to do something Rose had introduced her to: window shopping. Ben doesn’t understand the activity at all. Each time she expresses interest in something, he offers to go inside and buy it for her.

She says, “No, I’m _window_ shopping.”

She says it with such satisfaction. Ben shakes his head with a smile on his face, as he has become prone to do in her presence. They walk past the clothing stores, the jewelry stands, the souvenir shops, the coffee houses. A block before the ice cream parlor, Rey stops in front of a little Buddhist shop called _The Force Within._ She peers in the window, admiring something on a display table.

“What are you looking at?” says Ben.

She smiles. “I’m going to get you a present.”

“No you’re – ” But she is already inside. He jogs after her.

“Rey!” he whispers.

Rey ignores him, picks something off a shelf, and goes to the back of the room to pay. She gasps as Ben grabs her shoulder briefly. The contact is only for a second, but it’s alarming enough to stop her in her tracks.

She turns around. He’s panting a little.

“What?” she says.

“Don’t buy me things,” he says.

“Why not? It’s not expensive.”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t.”

Rey frowns and goes to put the item back. She holds it in her hand, longingly, and then purses her lips and huffs. She grips it tighter and walks back over to him.

“No,” she says.

“Rey – ”

“I’m allowed to get you a present, Ben. You haven’t even seen it yet.”

He looks furious, but she ignores him again and continues on to the register and pays. He follows her back out of the store, and she sits down on a little bench between two small trees. He drops next to her, avoiding her gaze.

“You can’t be mad at me forever,” she says. “Are you going to accept it or not?”

She holds the item out in front of him. It’s a cedarwood wrist mala, with hand painted Chinese characters that say: _Where you place your will, there you will achieve._

He lets her drop it in his hand. He turns it over, examining it over his fingers.

“Do you like it?” she asks.

He looks at her, his eyes reminding her of Leia’s more and more every day. He looks startled, confused. After a few seconds he nods in quick short motions.

Rey takes it back from him and opens the clasp. He offers his left wrist. She ties on the mala, careful to not come into contact with his skin.

Once on, he holds his wrist in front of him and fingers the wooden beads. Rey chuckles, taking that as a thank you.

“Come on, ice cream is right there.”

Ben continues to be preoccupied with his mala as they walk. He hardly registers that Rey orders them ice cream cones and forgets to insist on paying for them.

As they mosey back down the sidewalk, Rey fights back a fit of laughter. She must have broken him. He hasn’t said a word for fifteen minutes. She looks over her shoulder at him; he’s still messing with the mala. She pushes her shoulder into his arm, regaining his attention.

“How do you feel about sushi for dinner?” she says. “I like that outdoor place by the pond with all the koi fish.”

“Whatever you want,” he says.

           

That night, Rey says goodnight to him in the garden, as usual.

“Will you be home tomorrow when I get back from work?” she asks.

“Should be.”

“Great, I want to tell you about my first day.”

He nods and turns to go home to the guest house.

“Ben?”

He turns around.

“If I buy you stuff, it’s because I’ve found something meaningful or fun. There are no strings attached.”

“I know that,” he says.

“Okay.” She offers him a smile, which he half returns.

“Goodnight, Rey.”

Rey goes back in the house and hangs up her jacket. She sighs and puts a hand on the shoulder where Ben had touched her before. He can’t bear a hug goodnight, but he can grab her to stop her from buying him a $10 present?

“Good evening.”

Rey turns around and Luke is standing in the sitting room doorway.           

She yawns. “Hi, uncle. Gorgeous day, wasn’t it?”

“You were with him all day again, weren’t you?”

Rey scowls at his serious face. “Do you have something to say?”

Luke comes in the kitchen and sits on a bar stool. “Not exactly. Just making an observation.”

Rey comes over, reaches her arms under his, and snuggles against his chest.

“I start work tomorrow,” she says, changing the subject.

“Yes, I know.” Luke rubs her back with his warm hand. “My Rey, an Aikido instructor.”

“Your Rey, a lot of things these days.”

“Sometimes I miss our quiet life back home,” Luke says with a sigh, “where I didn’t have to share you as much.”

“I’m so happy here, uncle,” Rey says against the fabric of his sweater.

“I know.” He kisses the top of her head. “I know.”


	8. The Real Fear

Rey walks up the narrow, stone steps to the small studio, admiring the weathered wooden sign above the door reading, “Kenobi Studios”. She pushes open the door, the brass bell jingles, and a tall man in with auburn hair and beard steps out from his office.

“Good morning, Master Kenobi,” Rey says.

“Miss Skyla,” he says with a bow. “Pleasure to see you again. Please come in.”

Rey closes the door behind her, shyly. She follows him into the gym where an array of equipment is set out, things Rey has never seen before in her life.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” he says, kindly. His deep-set blue eyes sparkle.

He gestures to a mat on the floor, which Rey kneels upon. He sits cross legged on the mat across from her.

“I’ve been without a partner for some time,” says Master Kenobi. “I’m looking forward to what we will accomplish together. The students arrive tomorrow. Today we’ll prepare, practice, feel one another out. I will guide the first several classes so you can grasp my teaching style. Then I will turn the beginners over to you while I focus on the rest. Is this acceptable to you?”

“It’s perfect,” says Rey with a grin.

Rey watches his eyes settle on her grin and an amused smile spreads across his face.

“You have a beautiful energy, Miss Skyla,” he says.

“Thank you,” Rey says, her face burning.

“You and I will have three classes a day, three times a week. Between classes I would like us to train together. And during those times, I will be your teacher.”

Rey bows her head. “I’ll be honored.”

Master Kenobi shakes his head. “It’s the teacher who is honored to train the student. There is no higher compliment or obligation.”

He winks at her and rises, holding out a hand to help her up.

“Ignore the equipment. It’s unimportant. The soul of the practice is here – ” he holds his palm over his heart. “ – and here alone. As, of course, you already know. I will teach you everything else.”

           

Rey dedicates every bit of herself to Kenobi Studios for the next couple of weeks. As predicted by Finn, she temporarily drops off the social planet as she immerses herself in lesson plans, honing her own techniques, practicing, thinking, meditating. Luke is pleased because it appears that she has a use for him again. The two of them practice again daily, like they used to do in the mountains. She urges him to push her to do better, to be stronger. The faces of her students dance around in her dreams all night long.

Ben has no trouble respecting her need to focus on this new task for a while. It took one declined invitation for him to back off, and he has only made a few appearances since then to offer a first aid kit or a pitcher of water.  

Finn, on the other hand, is not turned away so easily. First, he wants to join her practice sessions, as though it’s a fun game of wrestling, and is instantly disappointed. Next, he wants to distract her, convince her she needs balance in her life, tempting her with movies and chocolates. Finally, Rey calls Rose and asks her to take him away.

It is early July and Rey feels on top of the world. She adores her job, her friends, her bedroom facing the garden, her new family, her…Ben. The city has thoroughly rooted her now, it has a piece of her and she of it. She relishes the idea of belonging to something so large and intricate and ever-changing. It’s a similar joy she feels knowing she belongs to Luke, and to Leia and Finn and Rose.

But at long last the day comes to remind her that as much as she has filled up her life with love and comfort and solid, secure relationships, pain will eventually have its turn again. There’s nowhere she can go, no one she can surround herself with that will change where she came from and what she will always carry with her. All experiences, good and bad, flow in and out like the ebbing waves of the ocean.

On that day, she has no recollection of how she got back home to Leia’s house. That day she is nine years old again; lost, frightened, unsafe. She stumbles off the bus, having lost feeling in her legs. She looks down at the feet stepping in front of her, wondering how it is that they are her own. Her periphery vision is dark. It’s a bright July afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, yet she can only see five feet in front of her; an unstable path of concrete and a pair of converse sneakers that apparently belong to her.

Her hands are numb, so she brings them behind her neck. They are freezing. Her arms are shaking. It’s almost ninety degrees outside.

She walks up Leia’s driveway, vaguely recognizing the honeysuckle hedges. At least her body seems to know where it’s going. She goes around to the garden where Leia, Rose, and Finn sit on the benches by the birdfeeders. Rose is helping Leia write a speech and acting it out dramatically for Finn and Leia’s amusement.

Rey walks silently over to them and sits on the bench next to Leia.

“Welcome home, Rey! How was work?”

“Hey, want to go for a drink tonight? Finn and I are meeting a coworker – ”

“Rey, look what Rose brought me back from her conference in…Rey?”

Rey doesn’t know why they are looking at her like that. All three of their faces are in her view, despite the dark edges around her vision. They had bright smiles on their faces but now they slowly falter and are replaced with unified concern.

“Rey, darling…” Leia begins. “What’s the matter?”

Rey tilts her head, but in so doing feels an itch on her cheek. She lifts her hand up to her face; her cheeks are both wet. Tears are spilling from her eyes in a steady stream. Her heart flutters in panic for a moment. She doesn’t think she’s ever been crying without realizing it before…

“What’s wrong?” Finn takes a seat on the other side of her. “What happened?”

Horrified, Rey hides her face in her hands.

“Rey, talk to us,” says Rose.

Rey is terribly humiliated. She didn’t know she was crying, why didn’t she know she was crying?

“Where’s Luke?” Rey asks pitifully from behind her hands.

Tears keep leaking from her eyes, but she isn’t sobbing, she doesn’t feel wracks of sorrow or heaves of despair through her chest and heart. Like the feet walking her home, her eyes and cheeks are not her own. She’s starting to become genuinely scared.

“He isn’t here, darling, he’s gone out for a bit,” Leia says gently, placing an uncertain hand on her back. “Can we do something for you?”

Rey shakes her head, her face still in her hands. Her arms are still trembling, and now her legs are shaking too.

“Did someone hurt you?” Finn demands, outraged.

“No…no…” Rey’s voice doesn’t sound like her own either.

“Then, what - ?”

“Be quiet, Finn,” says Rose. “The poor girl’s in shock.”

Suddenly the three of them stop talking and look over to the guest house. Ben has stepped off the porch and is walking straight toward them, making it the first time he has inserted himself in their company since he arrived two months ago.

Rey is folded over in her lap, the hands covering her face cold and quivering. Leia, Finn, and Rose watch in shock as Ben kneels down in front of her bench and leans close to Rey’s covered face.

He says, “It’s me, Rey. What happened?”

She gasps as though now realizing her lungs are not hers either. Now that she is aware, she can’t breathe right. She’s breathing too fast, or too slow, or not enough. The air she’s drawing in isn’t fulfilling her, she’s a fish out of water that keeps gulping even though it’s in the wrong atmosphere, gasping for the wrong life force.

“She’s hyperventilating…” says Rose’s frightened voice.

Ben raises a hand and brings it an inch away from the side of Rey’s head. His fingers tremble for a moment and then he settles them within her hair, stroking the loose strands behind her ear.

The sound Rey makes is a cross between a whimper and a cough. She tries to take a couple slower breaths before lowering her hands. Ben is looking at her with a crease between his eyes. She is transfixed as he brings his fingers to the top of her forehead and traces them down along her hairline. And then again, once more.

“Just breathe,” he says. “It’s all you have to do.”

She swallows uncomfortably, like she had just been saved from drowning. Her face and hands are starting to feel like her own again, her legs and feet are hers, her chest is hers – and she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like it at all.

She starts crying in earnest, feeling the heaves of fear and humiliation and sadness overcoming her, manifesting in her tears and spilling down her face. She slides off the end of the bench and lands on her knees in front of Ben. She falls into his chest, remembering even in this moment to cross her hands under her chin so as to not actually embrace or touch him.

She shudders hopelessly, feeling like she’s falling into a pit in the ground. She feels Ben’s hand, warm on her back. He…he’s holding her. It makes her cry all the harder.

Finn scoots over on the bench and reaches down to put his hand on the side of her shoulder. He squeezes it gently and says, “Do you want to go back inside with us, Rey? Luke should be home soon.”

Rey doesn’t see Ben glaring at him.

She hardly registers she’s been asked a question. She curls into this wall of warmth that is holding her, scrunching her eyes shut, and wishing the rest of the world would disappear.  

“Rey,” Ben whispers against the side of her head. “Tell me what you need.”

“You.” Her voice is tiny and fragile, but it’s all Ben needs to hear.

Biting down hard on his lip, he slips his arm under her knees and lifts her up while he stands. The three dumbfounded people sitting on the benches are the furthest things on his mind. He walks away from them as though they were never there to begin with.

Once inside, he sets Rey down on the couch and pulls out the striped blanket she usually favors on their evenings in. He drapes it over her, hoping she will stop shivering soon.

Rey takes a deep breath and hugs the blanket around her. She already feels a little better not having everyone looking at her.

“Thank you,” she says, as he puts a mug of hot cinnamon tea on the coffee table.

He sits in the chair adjacent to her.

“Your color is starting to come back…” Ben frowns and adds, “What the hell, Rey?”

She laugh-chokes on her tea. Her brain feels muddy. Only he could force a laugh out of her at a time like this.   

She takes a great sigh and leans back on the couch, warming her hands on the mug.                      

“Something happened on my way home from work today,” she says.

Ben watches her expectantly, his forearms propped on his knees.

“I was on my way to the bus stop,” she says, feeling breathless again, “and people were getting off work, it was really crowded and hard to see. I tripped over this boy who was sitting on the ground against the wall of a building. He was barely an adult, eighteen or nineteen, I think.

“I started to say sorry, but he wasn’t moving. His head was lolled to the side and something seemed off. It was actually really hard to get back over to him cause all these people kept walking by. No one was noticing him, and I went back and leaned over to see if he was okay…

“He – his eyes were half open and there was all this…vomit on his shirt…and his mouth was all…foaming.”

She hugs the blanket closer.

“Some guy tripped over his foot cause it was sticking out in the sidewalk, but the guy just said something like, ‘watch it’ and kept going. And then the boy fell over the rest of the way, on his side. I think I tried to ask someone for help, but seriously, everyone was oblivious. And then something rolled off of him and fell on the ground. A – a needle.

“I completely froze.” Tears are spilling from her eyes again. “It was like my…throat closed up and I couldn’t even ask for someone else to do something. He was…seizing there and I was just…watching.”

Ben’s eyebrows are almost one continuous line across his forehead as he listens.

“Then what happened?” he says in a low voice.

“It’s a little fuzzy now…I think I just grabbed someone and pointed. It was a woman, I know that. She started shrieking and I don’t know, there were sirens. Someone came and took him away…and, I guess that was it. People went back to pushing their way down the sidewalk like before. But I was just stuck there, staring at that spot where he was sitting. I don’t know, obviously I came back home at some point.”

“Rey…” Ben looks sympathetic; it’s a new look for him and Rey appreciates it. “Are you going to be okay?”

She hiccups and brushes away a tear. “Do you think I’m…the worst person?”

“What – why…?”

“I feel like such an idiot. What if something bad happens to him because I didn’t act fast enough?”

“Rey, don’t.” He looks offended for her own sake. “That’s ridiculous.”

She rubs her hands down her face. “Okay…”

Ben scowls, trying to fathom her thought process.

She shakes her head and massages her temples. “I panicked. I wanted to help more but I couldn’t get those images out of my head.”

“What images?”

She looks at him for a moment, realizing she’s never spoken about this out loud to anyone before. No one but Luke. A steely feeling weighs on her chest as she searches for the words she hasn’t had to say since she was thirteen. Since Luke woke her up from yet another night terror, a year after he took her in. Since Luke sat on the side of her bed until she fell back asleep, telling her she’s safe now, she’s safe now, she’s safe now.

“Can you…can you come here first?”

Rey feels guilty asking this of him, but she can’t imagine saying anything about her childhood without comfort or support. She feels so alone on the couch by herself. Miles away from anyone.  

It takes Ben several seconds for it to click in what she’s wanting. The moment it does, his eyes grow in surprise and he stands up instantly and sits by her side. Rey’s bottom lip trembles as she looks at him.

He places a hand on her knee and caresses it with his thumb.

“Is this what you want?” he says. “Tell me. I’ll do whatever…whatever you ask.”

He’s holding her knee a bit firmer than necessary, probably to steady his hand. Rey nods and leans against his arm, holding her hands in her lap.

“Yes, thank you,” she says.

She takes a deep breath. “What happened today,” she says, “happened a lot growing up. Only there wasn’t always someone to ask for help. Sometimes people just had to get better on their own. Or sometimes they didn’t.”

“What…?” Ben hardly whispers. He clears his throat. “Rey, why would you be around things like that?”

“My mom always lived with a lot of people. We rarely had our own place. Just went wherever had room.” She blows out a breath through puckered lips. “Sorry, this is kind of hard to talk about.”

Ben’s grip on her knee tightens. It occurs to him he should say something comforting, but he wouldn’t know where to begin. He’s already in fight or flight himself, holding her leg like this, having her a turn away from an embrace.

“My mother was an addict,” Rey continues. “They all were. Every so often, she would tell me we’re starting over, going to do different, and we’d move away somewhere. A friend’s house, or once she was able to hold a job long enough to get us a little place for a while. It never lasted though. We’d be back in those houses with all those people.”

Rey is clenching her hands in her lap. Ben stares at them longingly, his brows furrowed.

“She was a good mom,” Rey says firmly. “She wanted to be good. She was really sweet. A gentle, innocent personality. She was an easy person to walk over. Easy to influence because she trusted people. And she really cared about me. She tried to shield me from things. She didn’t know how much I saw. But she was a good person, Ben, she had a kind heart.”

“I’d imagine so. You came from her.”

Ben could never understand how much it means to Rey for him to say that. Especially since she knows he isn’t just saying things to be nice.

“Thank you, Ben,” she says, trying to keep the jumps out of her voice. “I wish you could have met her. I wish Luke could have met her. But she didn’t make it.”

Ben clears his throat again. “Was it – an overdose?”

Rey nods, feeling even the air around her press against her head and shoulders.

“Where were you when it happened, Rey?” Ben’s voice is anxious, and again, it touches her that he cares so much. His empathy is the gentlest gift she could receive right now. She treasures it with every bit of heart she has left.

“I was asleep,” she says sadly. “I woke up that morning and saw – ”

“Fuck,” says Ben, and he sits up with his elbows on his knees and rubs his hands down his face.

Rey leans back against the couch and watches him in a somber, quiet way. The spot on her leg is cold now that he’s taken his hand back. She focuses on him rather than the memory of what she saw that morning. She’s seen it enough times. The most recent being this afternoon, superimposed over a young boy not much older than her mom was when she had her.

“What can I do?” says Ben, looking over his shoulder at her. He suddenly stands up. “I’ll make you some dinner. And start a movie for you. Just…don’t worry about anything.”

Rey smiles as he moves about the room. She snuggles into her little nest of blankets and rests her head on a pillow he brings her. He keeps bringing her more and more things; another cup of tea, a second blanket, a book, the remote. She didn’t think she was capable of laughing but despite the sick feeling in her stomach, a small giggle bubbles up. He is so incredibly sweet.

Her mind goes mercifully blank and her mood softens to a mild contentedness. She feels well taken care of as Ben continues to pile things next to her.

“Dinner,” he reminds himself. “What would you like?”

“Um…maybe a bowl of soup?”

“Okay.”

He disappears into the kitchen and Rey nuzzles against the pillow that smells like him and watches the movie he started.

Fifteen minutes later there is a knock at the front door. Ben comes back in the living room to answer it and notices Rey is sleeping.

He cracks open the door. It’s Luke.

“I was told Rey is here, can I – ?”

Ben steps aside and Luke barges in, looking around for Rey.

“She’s asleep,” says Ben.

Luke kneels beside the couch and puts a gentle hand over her forehead. He looks up at Ben with concern.

“What happened to her?”

Ben nods toward the kitchen, and Luke follows him inside. Ben checks on the soup simmering in the pot as Luke takes a seat on a barstool.

“She witnessed a guy overdose on her way home from work,” Ben says, placing the spoon back on the counter.

Luke’s great blue eyes grow larger. He looks back at the small figure curled up on the couch and turns back to his nephew.

“She…no…”

Ben nods. “Pretty fucked up.”

Luke puts a hand over his eyes. He moves to stand up again.

“I’ve got to get her home…”

“I’m taking care of her, aren’t I?”

Luke looks back at him aghast, like he’s just now noticing who he’s talking to.

“She came here of her own accord,” says Ben. “She wants to be here.”

“You should have called me, Ben.”

“What? What for? She could have called you if she – ”

“Listen, if you don’t know the difference between a bad day and what just happened here at least take a moment to remember who the hell you are and ask yourself what it is you think you’re doing with my child.”

Ben stops in silent shock, as though Luke had just hit him. His eyes follow Luke as he paces around the kitchen.

“I can’t believe this,” Luke mutters. “Of all the things…”

He paces from the counter to the table to the living room to the table and to the counter again, looking back to the couch each time he passes by.

“There’s a good reason I kept her in the mountains,” Luke continues mumbling to himself. “This exact reason, in fact…”

“She’ll be alright,” says Ben.

“What do you know about it?” Luke snaps.

“I – you don’t…you don’t need to take her anywhere.”

“She’s been through more than you could possibly – ”

“Yeah, but she can stay, she doesn’t need to go…”

Ben is starting to act panicky and it fuels Luke’s temper.

“Why the hell are you so preoccupied with keeping her here?” Luke says with his eyebrow raised. “What kind of perverted – ”

Ben slams his fist on the counter. Rey stirs in the living room.

“Not _here_ , you asshole, I don’t want you to take her back to the mountains!”

Luke opens his mouth to retort and then shuts it. Ben drags a hand through his hair and goes back to the stove to check on the soup again.

Luke smooths his beard down his face, runs his teeth over his lip, and sits back down.

“When I said take her home,” Luke says, “I meant over there – to Leia’s house.”

Ben continues to stir the soup.

“Ben.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Is everything okay?” Rey is standing in the archway with her blanket hanging over her shoulders.

Luke immediately stands, goes to her, and puts his hands on her shoulders. He looks her over as though inspecting for bruises. How has he never noticed that sharp curve in her eyebrows? Has she always looked so focused, like she’s looking straight through you?

“I’m so sorry, Rey,” Luke says to her.

“I’m okay, don’t worry. I just needed a moment.”

“What can I do for you?” he says bending down to look her straight in the eyes. “Do you want to go back to the house? We could play a game with Leia, or talk, or read together. Anything you’d like.”

Rey watches Ben in the kitchen as Luke speaks. He’s still staring down at the pot of soup.

“I think,” she says, “I’ll stay here. If that’s okay with Ben.”

Ben looks up from the stove, looking from Rey to Luke and back to Rey. He nods and then turns back to the soup.

Luke appears surprised but he is just glad Rey looks better than how she was described to him when he got home.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he says with a smile, puts an arm around her, and walks with her to the front door.

“Thanks for checking on me,” Rey says.

Luke kisses her left temple. “You’re so very special, little Rey.”

“I love you, Luke.”

Luke is taken aback by the sincere look on her face. There’s that magic in her eyes. That, at least, he always did know was there. In his mind’s eye, he sees the ghost of a lanky, twelve-year-old child standing in front of him. A girl who hasn’t grown into her legs yet. A girl with freckles on her nose.

She used to look at him with a nervous and guarded expression. She didn’t trust him. And truth be told, he didn’t trust her either. Who was this creature, four and a half feet tall, glaring at him from a dirty face, no trace whatsoever of a smile on her cheeks?

Is it possible there was a time Luke was frightened of her? In the beginning, when she wouldn’t say a word, when she hated him even though he had saved her, provided her with everything she never had. She wasn’t grateful for any of it. And he didn’t blame her. What gratitude did she owe the world after everything she had been through?

But the real fear, for him, settled in when they broke that barrier. When she started looking him in the eyes, when he started seeing glimpses of a smile. When she would eat her meals in front of him and stop hiding her toys. The first words she ever said to him, after four long months of living with him, when he brought home an enormous box of chocolates from his trip to town, “Can I have some?” nearly broke him in two. He knew from that moment she could have everything, anything, whatever she could ever want from him. Real fear was realizing he was in love with this little girl, that she was and always had been born from his heart. It’s a fear he has cherished these ten years.

The ghost fades away and a solid, twenty-two-year-old woman takes her place. There’s no darkness in her eyes. She has been shaken; a terrible thing happened today. Her caring soul must have been crushed seeing someone suffer like that before her eyes. And unspeakable memories must have been stirred inside her wise, broken heart…

Yet she is strong, stronger than anyone Luke knows. Ben was right. She doesn’t need to go backward. Wherever she goes now, it will be of her own accord. She doesn’t need Luke anymore to know she is important and safe and loved. She knows all these things on her own now. She is the most amazing thing he has ever seen. Sometimes he can hardly believe she’s real.

“Uncle, why are there tears in your eyes?” Rey laughs.

Luke kisses the top of the hand she slipped in his.

“I love you, too.” It’s all he says before stepping outside. He gets about ten paces away before turning around and adding, “Not too late now.”

Rey grins and closes the door after him. She sheds the blanket from her shoulders and returns to the kitchen where Ben is still standing over the stove. She walks over next to him and lightly nudges her shoulder against his arm.

“You okay?” she asks.

“You stayed,” he says to the stove.

Rey smiles and leans back against his arm, remaining there this time.

“I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

He looks up and regards her with a look of mingled hopefulness and sadness.

“Can I have a taste?” Rey asks.

He dips the spoon in and holds it up for her to sip.

“I think it’s perfect, don’t you?” she says.

The corner of his mouth turns in an attempt at a smile. Rey pulls two bowls down from the cabinet and ladles them each a serving. She places the bowls on the dining room table side by side, rather than across from the other.

Ben’s smile is having an easier time now. He sits next to her, feeling warmth reenter his system as though he were sitting next to a fire.

They sit entirely in silence, a different kind of conversation from any they’ve had before. They look at each other while they sip their dinner, exchanging smiles and glances, until Rey actually laughs out loud.

“You’re the best, you know that?” she says when they are done and brings their empty bowls to the sink.

Ben comes up behind her and she turns around to see what other silent things he has to say. It turns out they aren’t so silent this time.

“I’d like to hold you again,” he says. “If that’s okay.”

Rey nearly drops the water glass in her hand. She stops in place, staring at him blankly. Ben takes the glass from her and sets it on the counter. He moves another step closer to her.

Rey looks ahead in wonder at his broad, muscular chest. Her heart beats like hummingbird wings as he puts his arms around her and pulls her against him. She smiles as she realizes that standing up, her ear reaches the place on his chest that is precisely over his heart.

Rey feels so safe; her face almost entirely covered by his enormous arms, his warmth enveloping her body, his heart thumping softly in her ear. She’s enchanted by the rhythm of his breathing, his delicious smell, the firm hold he has on her. He makes a contented noise in his throat and that alone unravels her. She inhales slowly, hoping to fix this moment forever in her memory.

After a couple minutes, Rey leans back a little, her tummy still pressed against him, and looks straight up to his face. Of all his many expressions, this is by far her favorite to date. He has a small smile, tender eyes, and for once possesses the energy of a man without cares or burdens.

The faintest chuckle rises in her and she bites her lower lip mid smile.

“What?” says Ben softly.

“Oh nothing,” says Rey, swaying them a little from side to side. “Though I did want to say thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything you did for me today. But I guess mainly for allowing me into your life. I know that door wasn’t exactly wide open.”

Ben considers her words, wondering which piece of it to react to. He’s been trying hard not to burden her with his insecurities, so discounting her gratitude because surely her life would have been better without him is not an option. Telling her, now that she mentions it, how exactly _did_ she worm her way in here, what mortifying motives must she have to pay any kind of mind to a man like him…that’s not an option either.

So he says, “I am…glad…that makes you happy.”

Rey snuggles back into his chest. “It makes me very happy.”


	9. Touch

The next few weeks pass in a blur. Rey puts herself right back into everything Aikido, working with Master Kenobi, Luke, her students, in solitude – every chance she has.

Ben surprises her one day by offering to train with her in the garden.

“Seems to be the only way to see you these days,” he says.

Rey finds him to be quite good, especially since he hasn’t practiced in well over a decade. He’s surprisingly patient, allowing her to correct his stances and give him suggestions. She does wonder, however, how much he’s playing it up, if the coy smirk on his face is any indicator. More than once, Rey is given the impression that he knows more than he lets on. That, or he’s an incredibly fast learner. Either way, in a blink of an eye, the morning is gone.

When Rey brings a plate of sandwiches to the picnic table, she is still working to catch her breath. Ben is bent over the table, wiping his face and neck with a towel. He smiles at her when she returns, and her already pumping heart is kickstarted anew.

Rey suddenly has difficulty swallowing. The tank top he wears is damp with sweat, and the white edges are clean and sharp against his skin. His biceps have a bright sheen from the sun, each bulge in his arms is more prominent than ever from the strain of the last several hours, his shirt is flat to his stomach, outlining a tight and corded abdomen.

Rey sets the plate down and grins sheepishly, trying and failing to stop staring. If Ben notices, he doesn’t let on. He takes a sandwich and begins to devour it before he has even taken a seat.

“This brings me back,” says Ben, looking Rey in the eyes with a light, boyish air that crushes her. “I practically lived with my uncle during the summers to do this with him.”

Rey pictures her beloved Luke teaching a miniature version of the man sitting in front of her how to fight and defend and sit with the balance of things. Her eyes prickle with the image. She knows how enticing Luke can be, especially as a child. His strength and dedication are awe-inspiring, and his openness and willingness to share it makes you feel like you’ve been granted the highest honor. The inclusion you feel, the connection to something greater than yourself…it’s as wonderful as life itself to a young child.

 Ben proceeds to tell her stories about studying Aikido with Luke, from their first lesson to their last. Rey is so distracted by the fact that he is telling happy stories for once that she allows their brief lunch break to drag on for two hours.

Rey watches him speak, half listening and half admiring from a mental distance, noticing the unpracticed crinkles on the sides of his eyes as he smiles. More than anything, she notices the way he looks at her as he talks. He isn’t telling a story to just anybody for the sake of talking. He is speaking to her, including her personally in these memories, sharing his past with _her._ He looks directly into her eyes, his own beautifully expressive. Rey feels so accepted she wants to jump up and hug him until he finishes his story.

It occurs to Rey in this moment, that Ben has become her absolute favorite person to talk to. He doesn’t often offer conversation freely, but when he does, he has such interesting things to say. Rey loves the way his mind works. And she could listen to the warm sound of his voice all day long.

Ben ends his story with a shrug, suddenly a bit embarrassed by the length of his speech. He looks back up from the table briefly to find nothing but interest and appreciation from Rey. Ben has never in his life been the type to talk much. With an unwelcome turn in his gut, he remembers how that used to upset his family. His mother more than anyone.

As a child, it was always easier to talk to them about pleasant things, as it is now with Rey. And as he got older, there were fewer and fewer pleasant things to talk about, until by the end, he hardly ever said anything at all. And then he was gone.

The smile that had come so easily before starts to falter as he picks up another sandwich. He shakes himself out of it and looks to Rey, who is gazing at her fingernails absentmindedly with a sweet grin on her lips. The feeling that accosts his chest is a rough equivalent to a rusted door bursting open for the first time in years. Rey looks back at him and asks a follow up question – to which he answers without hesitation.

Since Ben met Rey, she has been gradually giving him these tiny gifts that he never knew he wanted. Had he ever consciously desired someone to be fascinated by him? To drink in his words, nod in all the right places, laugh at his dry humor, truly listen to everything he says? Did he ever want someone to listen more than they respond?

It’s unusual and very unsettling, but every defense mechanism, wall, and shield Ben possesses can’t explain away the fact that Rey is genuinely interested in him. She values his ideas, validates his concerns, and is actively trying to get to know him every day.

Ben never imagined he would want someone to do that. Or at the very least, never imagined anyone would. He admits to himself, with a stomach full of hesitation, that it’s nice to be listened to. It’s nice to not have to worry about judgement or criticism. He’s tested Rey for that a hundred times in the last three months without her awareness, and no matter what he says to her, she just blinks those bright eyes at him and says figuratively, “I hear you. I understand you. Come on in, the water’s fine.”

He tries not to think about what will come of him if this is ever taken away. How he would ever live without it, now that he’s tasted the flavor. What heartbroken mess she would leave behind. The thought of Rey draws out an incredibly uncomfortable feeling these days. It’s an equal blend of gratitude and resentfulness. Ben never knows if he wants to bring her in close or shove her as far away as he can.

Yet whatever conflict he experiences inside, he does his best to present her with as much kindness as his miniscule heart is capable of. It won’t be him that leaves her desolate and lonely. It won’t be him that hurts her, making her question if this whole thing was all a joke. He will make sure of that. To whatever end, he will make sure of that.

 

As more days pass, without realizing it, Rey scoops out at least some time of every day to spend with Ben. Which is more than can be said for Rose or Finn or even Luke. It’s almost impossible for her to not. How can she resist this new look of excitement he has started giving her when she comes over? What could possibly be more important in her day than the chance to see a smile on his face?  

One day she doesn’t get home from work until after 10 at night. She has every intention of going straight to bed, deciding she can see Ben tomorrow if he’s free. But after one glance at the light in his window across the garden, Rey skirts across the cobblestone path to the guest house.

She walks straight in without knocking.

Ben had told her several days ago that she didn’t need to knock anymore. There was no further explanation. Rey had simply knocked one day, Ben let her in, and said, “Just come inside next time.” And then he went to make her cinnamon tea and said no more about it.

Rey was skeptical at first. Ben did not strike her as the type who liked his privacy invaded without warning. But she tried it out the following day and was pleasantly surprised by the results. She entered his house and found him building a model airplane in the den. Upon seeing her, a wide smile appeared on his face and he stood up, put his arms around her waist, and lifted her up off her feet.

He said, “Oh Rey, you are a breath of fresh air.”

Her heart didn’t work right for the whole rest of the day.

Now she is entering his home late at night. She’s not sure the same rules apply but decides not to overthink it. Her intention was to say a quick goodnight, make sure he had a good day, and get back home for bed. But she had not planned on finding him stretched out on his bed without a shirt, reading a book held in the air over his head, with partially wet hair sprawled out on his pillow.

Rey hadn’t been aware she is capable of sensations like this. The moment she walks in his room and sees him this way, she draws in a sharp breath and holds it until she sees stars. The blanket beneath him looks incredibly soft and silky…crawling in with him would feel amazing on her bare legs and arms. His relaxed, casual appearance is cozy and inviting. She could curl her whole body against his and be on cloud nine. She could lay on her back with her head on his pillow, and he could lean over her with his wet hair falling in her face as he…

“Hi,” Ben says with a tone of surprise. “I didn’t think I was going to see you tonight.”

Rey wonders if he can see how red her face is in the dimly lit room.

“Come in, Rey,” he says, sitting up. His ab muscles clench with the motion. Rey feels faint. Her hand reaches for the door frame to steady herself.

He’s happy to see her, it’s written all over his face. Rey can’t stop grinning like a school girl. She tries not to stare, but his appearance is exquisite. His chest could be chiseled from stone and all this time it’s been covered up by T-shirts.

Ben tilts his head to the side, trying to figure out what’s up with her. He stands from the bed and approaches her. Rey feels her face burn even hotter.

“Can I get you some tea?” he says.

“N-no, thank you,” she answers. She locks eyes with him and grins shyly. She glows under the heat of his gaze. His affection is quite addictive.

Ben follows the quick drops in the direction her eyes are looking. He dips his chin down and his eyes grow as he realizes what she’s gawking at. He notices her flushed skin and her embarrassed expression. He fights back his own smirk.

“Rey,” he says. “You look lovely tonight.”

He is teasing her. Rey glares at him, but she can’t stop grinning so it doesn’t have much effect.

“How – how was your day?” Rey stutters, backing up against the wall.

He takes a step closer. “It’s better now.”

She gulps, wondering if he’s _trying_ to make her stop breathing. She’s as far against the wall as she can be. She holds her hands behind her back; her palms are starting to get sweaty.

Rey’s perception of herself is a bit different from Ben’s perception of her. To him, she isn’t so childish. Quite the opposite. While she is dying of embarrassment for not being adult enough to stand before a half-naked man with confidence, all Ben sees is a quiet young woman with flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Her figure is rather slender there in his doorway, and the way she is crossing her legs and holding her hands behind her back is nothing short of sinful temptation.

“Are you staying a while?” Ben asks her.

“I’d like to,” she breathes.

“I’d like you to, also.”

“I’d like to kiss you.” The moment the words are out she slaps a hand over her mouth. She looks back and forth between his eyes.

The most prominent emotion on Ben’s face is surprise and then it is quickly replaced with something that looks an awful lot like hunger. Rey watches his chest and belly move with his breathing. She swallows thickly, feeling quite out of control.

Ben lifts his hand to touch that soft cheek before him, so flush and feminine…but it’s like his hand hits an invisible wall. Rey looks at his hand raised almost to her chin. Those large, masculine fingers are inches away from her. She can almost taste them. The nerves in her skin buzz with the prospect of his touch.  

Ben drops his arm to his side and flexes his hand a couple times. He focuses on her radiant eyes, the lovely face smiling at him. This is not going to be ruined for him. An incredibly foreign part of him is alive, a part he thought died a long time ago. It is _not_ going to go away now.  

Rey looks at the beginnings of panic rising in his eyes and looks to his hand at his side, watching his fingers brushing anxiously along his palm.

Her own nerves are replaced with sympathy. The chestnut tone of his eyes warms her soul as she stands before him, wanting nothing more than for his smile to return. Wanting nothing more than for him to be happy, always.

“Here,” says Rey. She grins sweetly. “We can take it slow.”

She lifts her right arm and reaches toward him, stopping half way to extend her hand out in the space between them. She waits, watching for his reaction.

Ben purses his lips and looks at the hand reaching for him. Such a small thing to offer so much. He pushes down the feeling that surges forth telling him he doesn’t deserve a single bit of it. Since Rey has been in his life, he has made the focus on her. What she wants. What she asks for. It helps to ease the conflict of what he should do, what he deserves. None of that matters if she is happy.

He steps to the side to steady himself. He exhales through his nostrils and wills himself the strength to do this small thing. To not make an ass of himself, cause her worry, or make her think she could ever do anything wrong.

Yet there is a humming in his chest he doesn’t like. Rey’s hand is waiting for his touch. This is Rey, for fuck’s sake. It’s _Rey._ She wouldn’t hurt him. She cares about him. Any fool can see that.

He moves his own arm forward, extends his own hand toward her, his fingertips less than an inch away from hers. He waits for the invisible barrier to manifest. But it doesn’t. He stares at her hand, focuses on this task. Holding his breath, he touches his fingertips to hers.

A pleasant surge of affection flows through Rey as they touch. It’s a small act, but it means everything to her.

Ben’s heart pounds against his ribs; it doesn’t seem to realize he isn’t in danger. But he lets it pound. The sensation of her skin against his is incredible. It is also overwhelming.

 His hand begins to tremble. He swallows and closes his eyes.

“Tell me if this is too much, okay?” Rey says.

She slides her fingers down to his palm and then curls them around his hand. His hand is almost twice the size of hers. It’s strong and warm and Rey grins as he closes his fingers over her hand as well.

His hand is still shaking. His breathing is shaking too.

Rey leans forward to catch his eye. “You will tell me if it’s too much, won’t you?”

“I – it’s…whatever you want,” he says.

“No, it’s not,” she replies. “It’s for both of us.”

He responds with stunned silence. He doesn’t like the sound of that. He has a good thing going. Anything and everything on her terms. He can’t think about himself – he is a broken, fucked up thing. He doesn’t get a say.

“Ben?” Rey says softly.

“What?”

“Are you afraid of me?”

He looks up from their hands to her eyes. This is all wrong. This is going all wrong.

“N-no,” he says.

She drags her thumb over the back of his hand. “Do you think I would hurt you?”

“No.” He clears his throat. “Not physically.”

“Then why…?”

She leaves it there, not finishing her question. He sighs despondently. Here it is. The question he always knew she would ask eventually.

“Do I need to tell you now?” he asks.

Rey considers him. There’s a line between her eyebrows as she looks at their hands again and continues to trace over the back of his with her thumb.

“You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do.”

She means that in more ways than one. Ben’s heart clenches, sending a sharp piercing sensation all throughout his chest.

 Rey lightly squeezes his hand and says, “You can trust me. I care about you very much.”

These words and her soft way of saying them. Something constricts in his abdomen and there’s a pressure in his throat. Why is this happening? Why has this been turned around on him? Why is she saying these things? Is she trying to turn him into a blubbering mess?

Rey looks concerned again. What happened to that sweet smile? A moment ago, everything was fine.

“Will you tell me what you’re thinking?” she asks.

With his free hand, Ben pinches his temples with his thumb and middle finger. His lips part as he finally lets out a breath.

“I haven’t touched another person in over ten years,” he says. “Not a handshake, nothing.”

He looks at their hands like they are something ugly.

Rey doesn’t know what to say. It’s really hard for her to tell if he is angry or not. It doesn’t sound like he is glad he’s been getting closer to her.

“I – I’m sorry if I – ”

“You don’t get it,” he says. The panic finally bursts through and he takes a step back from her, breaking their hands apart. His words become rapid and anxious: “I’m going to fucking fall in love with you and everything will somehow get better and you’re going to be so nice and eventually I’ll believe you and I’ll think I can tell you things and then you’ll know…you’ll know all this ugly, disgusting stuff about me and then you’ll leave, Rey, you’ll fucking leave – ”

As his voice cracks, he turns around in a circle and goes to sit on his bed, bowing his head so his hair covers most of his face.

Rey stares transfixed at him for a moment before coming to her senses. Hesitantly, she goes to his bed and sits on the edge next to him. She takes a deep breath before turning to the mass of anxious energy next to her.

“Do you know why I knocked on your door that day when we met?” she says.

His head turns from side to side and he rests his forehead on his palm.

Rey bends her leg to turn and face him better.

“I’ve been shouted at before,” she says. “I’ve had people ignore me when I’m hurting. I used to wish that someone, even a stranger would have thought I was important enough to check up on.”

Ben is still in the silence that follow her words.    

“I didn’t know we were going to hit it off or any of it,” she continues. “But I’m so happy it turned out this way, that we found each other. I feel special to be as close to you as I am. You’re right, I _am_ going to be nice to you for as long as you want me around. As for the rest of it, I would never think badly of you. But until you believe that for certain, I don’t want you to tell me anything. We should feel safe together first.”

Ben roughly claws his fingers through his hair to get it out of his face. He’s crouched over, looking straight into his lap.

“Ben,” Rey says, scooching closer. “You are important to me. All I want is for you to be okay. You can trust me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He swipes his hand across his face and continues looking down.

“I just want you to be happy,” he says quietly.

Rey pushes her hand across the mattress toward his. He lets her slide her fingers over his and hold them.

For the second time tonight, Ben feels the warmth of her touch. If this is some plot to make him even more miserable than he already is, whether Rey is actually in on it or not, he’s not sure he’s going to survive it. And really, it’s so cruel, because no one has ever messed with his heart before.

The time of night is finally starting to catch up with Rey. She is starting to slouch, and her eyelids are becoming heavy. Ben notices the dark circles under her eyes.

“Come lay down here,” he says, moving over.

Rey crawls between his sheets obediently. She lays her head on his pillow, the pillow that smells like him. She shudders with comfort.

Ben lays on his stomach next to her, watching her pretty eyes flutter shut.

“Can I try something, Rey?” he asks softly.

“Anything."

“Just stay still, okay?”

“Okay,” she says sleepily.

With great effort she lifts her eyelids to see what he is doing. His elbow is propped by her right ear and he’s resting the side of his head against his fist. He leans closer – his now-dry hair hangs down and brushes her face. She looks into his eyes; they’re red-rimmed and tired, but calm. He gently presses his lips to hers.

Rey’s eyes close in bliss as she floats high into the clouds. The careful pressure on her lips is peaceful ecstasy, her mind goes blank from it. His hair smells delicious. The sides of their noses touch. They open their mouths and both inhale as the heat of their tongues brush together.

It seems he has no trouble doing this; kissing was never a touch he feared. Rey leans up to press harder against his lips. He groans at the movement, pushing back. Their tongues move firmly yet gently around each other. He tastes wonderful, he smells wonderful, Rey’s senses are in overdrive. Her head returns to his pillow. His teeth press lightly over her bottom lip. It’s not rough but a surge of electricity bursts from the spot and travels down her body.        

Rey loses herself, loses track of time and everything. With her eyes closed, as sleepy as she is, she feels like she’s dreaming, and she and Ben are the only things in the world. The sheets are so soft and silky beneath her. He keeps letting up and then pressing his mouth harder against hers, and each time he does it she thinks she couldn’t possibly go any higher, but somehow, she does, somehow there doesn’t seem to be a limit.

At some point she really is too sleepy to go on. Her kisses weaken and she moans sleepily, contentedly. Ben eases off and plants several more kisses on her lips until a tired smile grows on her face. He smiles too and holds his lips one last time over the corner of her mouth.

When he lifts off her at last, she’s barely conscious.

“Goodnight, Rey,” he whispers.

She gives his hand one final squeeze before at last, giving in to sleep.


	10. The Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do a chapter in Ben's POV, they said...it'll be fun, they said...

Ben knows he is dreaming. He’s been here a thousand times before. It doesn’t jar him like it used to. He’ll wake up eventually, feel sick for the first half of the day, and nothing but bad things will happen until the day is over.  It’s been the same story for years. It’s the day following the dream he dreads more than the dream itself at this point.

He walks down the dark, rain-soaked street. He doesn’t even look at the people bleeding over the sewer drains. They’re not real. Not anymore. They are Snoke’s victims, not his. He never hurt anyone for the hell of it. Snoke was always the mastermind, the psychopath, the narcissist.

But as Ben passes these naked bodies, their bruised chests and stomachs, their missing limbs…the fact will forever be that however much of it is Snoke’s doing, Ben will always walk on by, never once bending over to help them. No matter how many times he relives this walk, that will never change. The dream is giving him a chance to do different. But he’s tried that before. It doesn’t help. He still wakes up in a pool of cold sweat. He still begins the day vomiting over a toilet. It won’t help. Nothing helps.

Now Ben stands next to the ghost of a fifteen-year-old boy and Snoke pulls up the driveway in a white lambo and steps out with a disgusting smirk on his face. Snoke is wearing his gold jacket this time. Ben and his younger self get in the car, as they know they must, knowing what’s coming, knowing they can’t stop it. Ben stays in the car, watching his younger self get out and follow Snoke into that magnificent house. He watches as thirty seconds later Snoke comes back out, locking the boy inside.

Snoke has an ugly scowl on his charred face as he returns to his car and opens the door. Ben scrambles out and goes inside to find the boy, wanting to offer him some twisted form of support he knows he won’t ever receive, because he isn’t really there. The boy stands in a dark room, his jaw set and eyes staring forward. Ben hates the panic that claws through his ribcage. He curses it. It belongs to the boy. He shouldn’t have to have anything to do with it anymore. Ben closes his eyes to the scene and waits for it to be over. His head is thudding, he can feel his real, unconscious body buzzing with disgust. His guts churn and his mouth waters with bile.

The next scene begins with gunshots. He keeps his eyes closed. He hears shouts, familiar voices, voices he’ll never hear again. If he tries, he can stay indifferent to this, too. He knows it’s not really happening now. It can’t ever happen again.

But the boiling nausea in his real body is becoming hard to ignore. For a moment he thinks maybe he isn’t going to wake up after all. He is going to be trapped in this dream feeling sick without relief, sleeping the day away inside these images and sounds. This must be the next phase of his personal hell. It’s not going to let him out. He’ll be stuck here forever with those bodies, the cold, backyard pool, sirens screaming in his ears, his hands covered in blood…

Mercifully he does wake up – he is ripped out of his dream and thrown into consciousness like garbage being tossed into a dumpster. He barely makes it to the bathroom in time. He throws everything up until he’s dry heaving.

_You fucking fool._ That dream shouldn’t have power anymore. He decided so last time. The monster is dead, no one is being murdered by the First Order, no one is being tortured or blackmailed. They’re safe now...well, many of them. Ben has seen to it. What else was the point of the last several months? It’s over.

He struggles to stand; his body is unusually weak. He looks in the mirror at his sweaty face, his pasty skin. His lips are a little swollen. He puts his fingers over them, remembering that Rey had stayed with him last night. Fuck, is she still here?

He stumbles out of the bathroom and looks around the corner to his bedroom. His bed is empty. He peers across the hall to the kitchen. Not there either. He sighs with relief. Didn’t want to have to explain this one.

He brushes his teeth and starts a shower even though he had just taken one the night before. He feels disgusting from head to toe. He steps in the running water, but it isn’t soothing. His skin is sensitive today, on edge, ready for attack. The hot water burns and the cool water freezes. When it’s over he feels more violated than cleansed. He wants it to be tomorrow already. Nothing ever goes well after that dream.

He goes to his room to get dressed and puts on the mala beads Rey gave him, which are next to his phone. There’s a text waiting from Rey. It says, “Sorry I had to sneak out, I was expected in town for breakfast with Luke and Leia. I loved spending the night with you. Miss you as always. Can I see you later? Finn is coming over for a while this afternoon but once he leaves maybe we could do dinner. Hope your day is as wonderful as you.”

Ben reads the message twice, waiting for a pleasant feeling to surface. Surely this ought to cheer him up. This amazing girl who seems to like him so much. He reaches up and touches his lips again. He thinks about last night, kissing her for so long, getting to watch her fall asleep in his bed. Shouldn’t that provide a good feeling of all things?

Apparently not. All he can focus on is what happened before that. That delicious look in her eye as she gazed at _him_ , his body. She wanted him, she wanted his kisses and his touches the moment she stepped in his room. Ben never expected that to happen, he didn’t prepare himself for what he’d do if it did. So instead he made an idiot of himself. Instead she had to walk him through the simplest things, like he’s a pubescent boy alone with a girl for the first time. What she must think of him.

And what the fuck is he supposed to do the next time she looks at him that way? He can’t remain in denial anymore; Rey is sticking around. She is going to want more. _He_ is going to want more. And in what world is that going to go over well? No matter how sweet she is, how patient or understanding, it’s all going to end in raw humiliation for him. This part of him is broken. Even Rey can’t fix that.

Ben decides to say in today. Going to town and having to interact in this state of mind is a terrible idea. He spends the next several hours studying up on pilot manuals, preparing for school in the fall. He forgets the time and noon rolls around, which means _she_ is going to be here soon. His mother. Every fucking day for the last three months. He forgets to go out or at least close up the curtains, so she doesn’t know he is home.

He realizes this about ten seconds before Leia knocks on his door. She looks through the front window and sees him.

Groaning, he stands and opens the door. He towers over her. Leia doesn’t smile at him, she sort of looks past him, lifting her chin.

“I’ve been trying to catch you for weeks,” Leia says.

“Could have called,” he mumbles.

“I don’t like talking to your voicemail. Are you going to invite me in? Into _my_ house?”

“Take it easy,” he says, stepping aside.

She goes straight to the kitchen and puts down her hat and scarf.

“I wanted to talk to you about this school business,” she says, seating herself at the bar, as Ben lurks under the arch to the kitchen.

He blinks at her. “What?”

“The aviation school you’ll be attending in the fall.”

“How did you – ?”

“Rey talks to me even if you won’t,” she says, motioning for him to sit on the stool next to her. “Obviously I am going to pay for it, but I wanted to know what other expenses you might need covered. Your father and I prepared a sum of money that was meant to go toward your education, if you ever got any.”

Ben sputters on his coffee. She has got to be kidding.

“You are fucking insane, you know that?” he says.

Leia shakes her head. “No, I am perfectly serious.”

“ _This_ is what you wanted to talk about? You want to give me money?”

Leia waves her hand at him. “I won’t hear a word about it. If this is you getting your life together, I would like to be a part of it, even if he couldn’t be. Whether you want a relationship with me or not, you’re living in my house and I would like to offer my help in whichever way you will accept.”

Ben is gawking at her, his temper beginning to spin out of control. The effort it takes to reign it in starts a sharp headache in both temples.

“Well I don’t want your money, obviously. What are you doing here? I refuse to believe you thought this was a good idea.”

Leia lifts her head higher and smooths her skirt over her lap. “Until you look me in the eyes like I’m your mother and not your enemy, this is how it’s going to be. If you want to live here, you can’t ignore me anymore.”

“If you want me out, say the word,” he retorts. “I intended on finding an apartment near the school anyway.”

Leia shakes her head, clearly becoming frustrated. “You aren’t a teenager anymore, we don’t need to fight like this. I’d like to start over, Ben. If you’ll let me, I’d like to get to know you again.”

“You never knew me before,” he mutters. It’s not an accusation as much as a statement of fact.

Leia nods, trying to be patient. “That may be. But I spent almost eleven years without you and I’m not going to go on pretending you’re still gone when you are right here in my garden. I have given you space, but I think it’s time we stop ignoring one another.”

He doesn’t respond, even though her eyes are boring into his, waiting for a response.

Her lips are a thin line as she says, “Would it kill you to put in a little effort?”

Ben feels like he’s a child again, getting chastised by his mother. A little effort didn’t get them where they are now. A little effort is not going to be able to repair it.

“What is it you want, exactly?” he says. “You can forget paying for school or anything.”

“I would like a conversation, even if it’s only once a week.” She has rehearsed this proposition, he can tell. “A lunch, perhaps, where you can tell me how you’re doing, what you’re up to. I’d like something to look forward to, some time with you I can count on, so I don’t have to keep wondering when’s the next time you’ll disappear…”

Her voice cracks and she immediately reaches for her scarf on the counter, tidying the frills. Getting emotional was not part of her plan.

Ben softens a little. “I’m not going to disappear.”

Leia nods, tapping her fingernails absentmindedly on the counter.

“Do we have an agreement, then?” she asks.

Ben is silent for a minute, cursing Leia’s timing. This wouldn’t even be happening if he hadn’t had that dream last night.

“I guess, if that’s what you want,” he says.

“Excellent,” she says stiffly, standing up. “I will see you next week.”

Ben is quiet as he follows his mother back to the door. She puts her summer hat back on, stands up straight, and pushes the door open. Before walking out she looks back at Ben, her face controlled but her eyes soft.

“I really am glad you are back,” she says. “Can I ask you one thing?”

“What?”

“Are you doing okay?”

He shrugs, looking at the ground. Leia nods, satisfied enough with this visit, as it was more than she had expected. Ben is holding his hands in front of him. Leia reaches for his top hand and squeezes it briefly before turning to leave.

“Thank you for meeting me half way,” she says. “We’ll talk more about school later.”

She sets off down the garden path and doesn’t look back once. Ben closes the door behind her, fighting the urge to slam it. His mind is on fire and he’s trembling with stress. He leans against the back of the door, panting.

He holds his left hand up, the hand Leia grabbed. He waits in horror, expecting to watch his flesh melt off. The closest sensation he can compare it to is a chemical burn. It’s a wonder his hand isn’t blistering before his eyes.

He holds it to his stomach, waiting for the sensation to subside but it doesn’t. He gulps on a sob, trying to hold himself together. Nothing is wrong. It was the briefest touch. His mother’s touch. He is fine.

He shakes his hand in the air and starts to walk around, thinking of other things to distract himself. He tries to read the pilot manual again but that doesn’t hold him. He tries washing his hands. He plays with his mala beads. He tries wrapping his hand in a hot towel. He tries soaking it in cold water. The sensation won’t go away.

He shouts out in frustration, turning his hand over again in front of him, looking for burns. He rubs it down his pant leg and decides to take a walk in the garden.

When he walks outside, he sees that Rey has come home. He can see her telling an animated story through the dining room window. He looks back at his throbbing hand. This didn’t happen when _they_ touched last night. That’s curious.

He wants to see her. This shitty day couldn’t possibly get worse with her in it. But as he walks toward the manor, Ben sees Finn step out from behind the refrigerator and put a strawberry in Rey’s mouth. Ben stops in his tracks. That’s right, he is here today. Never mind.

He walks twice around the garden until the burning in his hand finally eases off. He passes by the bench by the bird feeders where Rey meditates most days. That’s an idea. Something to connect himself with the present rather than the past. That’s exactly what he needs.

The bench is in view of the backyard facing windows, so he goes instead to the stone water fountain by the roses. He walks behind it and sits against the back wall, running his finger over the wooden beads on his wrist and listening to the peaceful trickle of water.

Not five minutes later Ben hears the sound of the screen door slam. Finn is telling Rey a loud story about his work party last night. Their voices are coming closer. Great.

It’s too late to return to the guest house without being detected. Predictably, Finn and Rey come to a stop at the other side of the fountain Ben sits behind.

“I’m telling you, Rey, he was asking about you all night. I know you only met him the once, but you clearly left an impression!”

“I’m flattered, really, but – ”

“Just _think_ about it.” The fountain shakes against Ben’s back as Finn jumps up on the ledge. “I wouldn’t recommend just anyone for you, you know. He’s crazy intelligent, and I _know_ he’ll just dote on you. What do you think? We could all go out together. I can call Rose and – ”

“Finn, please,” Rey says, laughing. “I don’t need you to set me up.”

Finn laughs too. “So you’re not interested at all? I can show you a picture again…see? Who could say no to those big blue eyes?”

“Maybe you should get with him, then,” says Rey.

“Maybe I will. Maybe it’ll make you jealous and then you’ll want to give him a chance.”

“Okay, can we change the subject?”

“Sure!” Finn drops back down to the ground. “After you give me one good reason.”

Rey sighs and says quietly, “I’m kind of already seeing someone.”

Finn is quiet for a while. Ben is crossing his fingers, eyes closed, praying this conversation is now over. But of course, nothing is going to go right today.

“Is it - ?” There’s an uncomfortable pause. “Is it Ben?”

Now Rey is silent.

“Rey?”

“What?”

Finn’s voice is careful. “You know I only care about your well-being…”

“Please don’t,” says Rey.

“Look, it’s your choice, of course. I just don’t feel right about sitting back and – ”

“Finn,” Rey warns.

“I knew him, you know. When we both worked for the First Order.”

“Okay…”

“He’s a monster, Rey.”

Another pause.

“Stop,” says Rey’s cool voice. “I’m not going to talk about him like this behind his back.”

“No, wait, don’t leave! I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m trying to be honest with you!”

“I don’t think you’d ever be dishonest, Finn, I just don’t think you should say anything without him here to defend himself.”

“Okay,” says Finn. “That’s fair. Please don’t look at me like that, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

There is more silence for a while. It feels awkward even from behind the fountain.

Finally, “What’s the matter, Finn? Does it really matter that much whether I go out with your friend?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do…Rey, do you know what the First Order is?”

Rey sighs and leans the edge of the fountain. Ben can see the end of her blue dress blow around the curve. “No, not really. Some sort of gang, I figured.”

“It’s more like a terrorist group.”

“Okay...”

“The leader was this sociopathic asshole who got off on torturing and controlling people. It wasn’t even a money thing, he just liked having brainwashed or blackmailed slaves all over the place to answer his every call. The First Order isn’t even a self-sustaining business. The whole thing fell apart once he was killed.”

“Well that’s…good, right?”

“Yeah I guess, though I’m sure there’s a lot of people still suffering from the aftermath. He had things set up to screw over everyone if he were ever to be removed from the picture.”

“And you had to work for him?”

“Yeah, I was raised in it. A lot of us were. Some people were forced to give up their kids to Snoke’s ‘program’ to pay off debts or buy their protection. They were promised contact, but a lot of kids never saw their parents again. I didn’t, at least.”

“Finn…I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. The important thing is I got out. I was in the right place at the right time and was able to slip away under the radar. I was never important enough for them to keep close tabs on and a string of circumstances worked in my favor. It was a messed up time for me. I got lucky and met some really good people. Then I met Leia and Rose, so yeah…I got really lucky. Most people never got out from under Snoke. He was a total psychopath.”

Even though he can’t see her, Ben can imagine Rey’s empathetic face right now; her concerned eyes, her parted lips, the blend of concern, anger, and protective compassion all over her face. She’s going to hear Finn out because she cares about him. But she needs to stop, because it’s only a matter of time before –

“Ben was his right-hand man, Rey.”

Silence again.

“If you’re mad I’m telling you this, I understand,” Finn says. “If you want me to go, I will. But as much as I love you, I will risk our friendship if it means you’ll listen to this. Because I don’t think anyone’s had the balls to tell you yet.”

Rey doesn’t say anything or do anything to stop Finn from continuing on, and in this moment, Ben hates her for it.

“Leia did everything in her power to bring down Snoke and the First Order. It was her obsession throughout her entire political carrier. When she was finally elected Senator and got some real power, her son went off and joined them. She was so worried people would find out that she didn’t even run for her second term.

“Rey, I know what the First Order was like before Ben joined, and I know what it was like after. Snoke’s reach in this city doubled from what it was before. I’m sure you can imagine it’s not every day a man like Snoke gets his hands on someone pampered and educated, who’s clever and tactical, someone with more than just brute strength. Ben might not have actually hurt anyone himself, I don’t know, many of us didn’t, but he was at least indirectly responsible for much of Snoke’s terror in this city for the past ten years. People feared him almost as much as Snoke himself. But what he’s done to the people he once called family, that’s the dirtiest crime of all, I think. I didn’t know Phasma very well, so I don’t know exactly went on there with Hux, but I’m sure whatever she says he did is true.

“Almost no one in the Order knew who he really was. I think that’s why, now that Snoke is gone, he can just go about his life without anyone noticing. He was always masked, and he went by a different name then. I didn’t figure out his true identity until after I got out, when Rose introduced me to Leia and Phasma and then Hux, who was my direct supervisor for many years. To my knowledge, we are the only ones connected to the Order who know his real name.

“Look Rey, I’m not saying he’s necessarily dangerous. What he could gain from hurting you, I have no idea. And with Snoke gone, the Order has no point anymore. I’m not saying you should make any judgements based on what I say. If Leia hasn’t told you what else he has done, it’s not my place. And Phasma must not hate him too bad or she would have outed him a long time ago. From what I know Hux thought of him like a brother, and Phasma begrudgingly respects that. I just want you to be aware at least of the position he held in the Order, and to let you know that everyone in this crazy, extended family is here for you, and that if you ever need anything at all, I want you to call me night or day. Okay?”

The seconds tick by as Ben and Finn wait on opposite ends of the fountain for Rey to respond. Nausea begins to wash over Ben in hot, jarring spasms. His hands are tingling. His mind is searing with anxiety. He almost yelps out loud as a sharp pain resonates from his fingertips on his right hand. It’s not the hand Leia touched earlier…it’s where Rey first touched him the night before.

“I don’t know what to say,” comes Rey’s trembling voice. “I guess…thank you…for your concern.”

“Are you mad at me for telling you?”

“I…no, not mad. I just feel…kind of sick.”

 “I’m sorry,” says Finn. “Upsetting you is the last thing I – ”

Rey cuts him off. “I shouldn’t have heard this from you.”

“I agree. Ben should have told you.”

“I’m saying maybe he was going to.”

“Maybe,” says Finn doubtfully.

“Now that you’ve said it,” says Rey, “can you please leave it alone now? I really don’t want you to say any more about him. I – I’ve been trying to be respectful of his past…he means so much to me…”

“Oh, Rey, please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m worried for you, that’s all.”

“I think you should go now, okay? I’m not mad. Just…I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alright, of course, whatever you want. I love you so much, Rey – we all do. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Ben hears Finn’s footsteps tread on the path back to the manor, leaving Ben and Rey alone together, separated from sight. He can hear her sniffling. She is sickened by what Finn told her. She is crying because of the things Ben has done. These truths hit him like blows to the stomach. Her sweet little voice sobs so softly. It’s the most agonizing feeling to hear it and not be able to go to her and make everything right again. But this is his doing. He is the last person she wants to see.

Ben closes his eyes, still leaning back against the fountain. The sound of water falling is sharper now, like silver crashing against concrete. When is Rey going to go back inside?

After about five minutes pass, Ben finally hears Rey stand up from the fountain and walk back to the manor. He waits until he hears the backdoor swing shut before finally returning to the guest house.

Something is wrong with his vision. It’s dark, hazed red, with clear angry lines that make him dizzy. He sits on the living room couch staring ahead, fumbling with the mala beads on his wrist.

_People feared him almost as much as Snoke himself._

Ben rolls the beads in a circle between his thumb and pointer finger. The wooden texture is soft and woven. They’re round, cool, and hard to the touch.

_I don’t know what exactly went on there with Hux, but I have a feeling whatever she says he did is true._

Ben can’t see at all now. His eyes aren’t closed, he can feel himself blinking, but all he sees is darkness.

_Whatever she says he did is true._

Ben grabs the couch’s armrest to orient himself. He finds his breath while his heart clambers to catch up. He runs his finger back and forth over the mala beads, listening to the sound of the them clicking against each other.

_He went by a different name then._

_Leia hasn’t told you what else he has done._

_If you ever need anything at all, call me night or day..._

 

About an hour later Ben hears the latch on his front door click open and Rey comes in holding take-out bags. It may be the first time her eyes don’t brighten when she sees him. Her smile doesn’t break free like it usually does. She puts their dinner in the kitchen and comes back to sit next to him on the couch.

Ben feels like his heart has swelled to twice its usual size from all the thrashing and bruising of the last hour. It hammers still, against his ribs. His chest is sore, his muscles ache, he feels like he has been beaten within an inch of his life.

He waits next to Rey for her accusations or her disappointment or her anger or her disgust or whatever she’s about to spew at him, and he doesn’t wait gracefully. If she would look at him, she would see him sweaty and anxious, lips raw from chewing on them, face drained of blood, hands unable to stay still. He waits for her to be anything but silent.

At long last she leans back on the couch, her head against the cushion, and looks at him.

She says, “How was your day?”

He can’t respond to that. He can’t speak at all. He’s leagues away from being capable of small talk, the preamble to what will become her rejection. Her declaration of hatred. Maybe on a different day he would think they could talk it through, he could answer her questions, or try to explain himself in a way she would understand. But not today. The sound of her crying earlier reverberates in the tenderest regions of his mind. What is there to say that would make this better? There is no angle, excuse, or explanation that could reconcile him.

The thought of this makes him feel hollow. The absence of her smile clouds him in bitter despair. He would do anything to make it come back. His world was a sick and lonely place before she inserted herself into it, and slowly, like a mile-high wave cresting above him, ready to crash down and rip his body apart – the horror and darkness that surrounded him before reveals itself again.

He would do anything to keep Rey ignorant of his crimes. To forbid her from hating him. He wants the power to cleanse her fears, to build her up, heal her wounds, quell her doubts. He wants to make her feel good, and beautiful, and wanted. He knows now he will never be capable of any of it. She has found out the smallest detail of the horror story that is his life, and already he has lost her.

Until this moment Ben has never considered his own desires in their relationship. He has never considered Rey someone who might be able to give _him_ what he wants to give _her_. Until now his only goal has been her happiness. Now, as he waits for whatever heartbreaking words are about to spill from her mouth, comes the realization that somehow, without his knowledge or consent, she has made it okay. Under her precious watch, Ben has been okay for the first time in his life.

As he watches her sitting there, looking back at him sadly with a red tinge to her eyes, a frown rather than a smile on her sweet face…he feels he may never be okay again.

Rey seems to have accepted that he isn’t going to answer her question. She reaches for his hand, pausing above it, waiting for his permission to hold it. He wants to. His nerves ache for her now. But it’s a cruel motion on her part. To ask for this right before taking it away forever.

He withdraws his hand to his side. She gazes at it, her lips bending briefly in an attempted smile, as though to say, “I understand”. She releases a great sigh.

“I can’t stand this, I need to tell you something,” Rey says.

Ben wishes his emotions wouldn’t betray him now. The corners of his eyes prickle and his throat feels raw. He wants to beg her for mercy, to do what she needs to do quickly and then leave him alone, like she should have done from the beginning.

Rey rings her hands, folds her legs under her, and faces him. She looks nervous and upset and Ben feels like the lowest piece of dirt.

“I didn’t want to bring this up, but I don’t feel right keeping it from you. Finn was over today and – ”

“I know,” says Ben. “I heard.”

“You…heard?”

He nods. “I was there. Behind the fountain.”

Rey’s eyes grow and she brings her hands over her mouth. Slowly she shakes her head, processing this.

“Oh, Ben,” she says, breathlessly. “I’m sorry… I wanted more than anything for you to tell me things in your own time.”

He shrugs, avoiding eye contact. “Honestly, I’m surprised no one else told you that sooner, my position in the Order. It’s not really a secret among my family.”

Rey says, “So you aren’t mad?”

“No, but I don’t want to go into it either. It’s been a long, shitty day. Whatever you’ve come here to say, just say it.”

Rey looks miserable. “Have I done something wrong?”

“There isn’t any explanation I can offer you,” he says impatiently. “I hardly knew that asshole friend of yours, but I guess his simplistic account of things is close enough. I worked under Snoke from when I was eighteen until a few months ago. There was never an order of his I didn’t follow. I fucked up a lot of lives. I’m probably the worst person you’ve ever met. I’m not sure what else to say. Except that I did warn you.”

“Ben…” Rey says, alarmed. “You don’t need to explain anything…”

“Then what do you want? I know you’re upset about it. I get it, okay? It’s a lot. Not what you bargained for. I understand.”

Ben stands up abruptly, his brain throbbing in his skull. It’s done, over like that. This is officially his worst post-dream day yet. It took Rey away from him. He needed her, and it took her away.

He storms down the hallway. Rey scrambles after him.

“Wait – this isn’t – will you just talk to me?”

Ben is filled with emptiness; his lungs are drowning in quiet space. He swore he would never let himself feel this way again. He doesn’t care that Rey is behind him, trying to plead with him. He wants nothing to do with her.

He reaches for his bedroom door handle and opens it, but as he brushes past, his wrist catches the door hinge. He briefly feels the cord of his mala beads stretch and then…snap.

A dozen beads scatter on the wood floor like a burst of hail. Ben looks down at his naked wrist and then at the beads bouncing and rolling down the hall.

He and Rey watch for a moment in silent shock. Then Ben stumbles to the side, catches himself on the wall, and slides down to the floor.

“It’s okay!” Rey gasps. “I can fix it!”

She stoops over and chases the little beads, placing them one by one in the pocket of her sundress. Ben watches her fumble down the hallway, reaching under tables and cabinets. The image of her and her blue dress becomes a more and more distorted blur as tears fill his eyes with each clenching beat of his heart, holding on as long as they can…until at last, he breaks.

He slams the back of his head against the wall, releasing hot tears down his face. Rey turns back at the noise and is motionless in the hallway, still crouched on her hands and knees. He hits his head backward one more time before something in his torso begins to tremor. He stutters, “F-f-fuck…”, and exhales a sharp, staccato breath through his teeth. His shoulders shake forward and he hides in his hands that are pressed to his knees.

Rey grabs the last mala bead off a floor rug and hastily returns to him.

Ben’s labored breaths struggle to pass his closed throat. His voice strains with the effort it takes to say to her, “If you ever gave a shit about me, please go away…”

“Go away?” Rey kneels at his side. “Why?”

Sobs shake him so hard that now he can’t breathe at all.  

“I don’t understand,” Rey says despairingly. “Is it me? What did I do?”

He chokes on a swallow, gulps, and attempts to keep his voice intact. “No, just… _go._ You’re leaving anyway.”

 “You think I’m leaving you?”

His arms clench around his knees. “Aren’t you?”

“No! Why would you think that?”

“Y-you were crying before, you said you felt sick…”

“Because I was hurting for you, because he was talking so coldly about you when I know there’s another side to the story. I felt sick because what you need is _compassion_ from people, yet all they do is warn me and ignore you. I want so bad for you to be able to move past that life somehow…”

“I didn’t want that life,” Ben says suddenly, his voice a higher pitch. “I fucked up, I was a stupid kid…He messed with my head, he knew my family, he knew my name…”

“But it’s over now, right?”

He shakes his head, his arms and knees moving side to side with it.

“He took everything from me. I’m fucking nothing now. I’m nothing.”

Rey sits next to him against the wall, bends her knees up like his, and touches the sides of their legs together.

“You aren’t nothing,” she says. “Not to me. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. You can trust me…”

He sputters for air, his knees now pressing against the sides of his head. Rey’s words have to travel miles to reach him. Somewhere, somehow, the message lands that she isn’t leaving him after all, that she is yet again staying by his side, being supportive, being kind. It should make him feel better, but it doesn’t. Now he has to accept the fact that he is splayed out raw before her. She won’t leave and he can’t stop crying.   

“Can I hold you?” Rey says softly in his ear.

Ben lifts his head up from his arms and looks at her. His cheeks are soaked, he’s beyond humiliated, and her gentle, understanding eyes are too much to bear.

“If you are fucking with me, Rey,” he says, desperately, “please don’t touch me. Please don’t fucking touch me…”

Rey’s eyes are full of tears. “I’m not…Ben, I am not going to hurt you.”

His face is back in his hands and he’s convulsing with sobs. This is his worst nightmare, losing it like this in front of her. He can’t protect her like this. He can’t make her smile. He can’t even properly push her away. Not when he needs her so bad, when for some reason she’s still sitting here, opening her arms to him.

He draws a great breath and mutters, “If you’re lying to me just fucking kill me when you’re done.”

“I’m not lying…”

He can’t take it anymore, he can’t feel like this anymore. The intensity of everything hits him like a train crash.

His long limbs bent up in a contorted mass, he falls to the side towards Rey, his subconscious’ last-ditch effort to find some relief in whatever way it can.

He has an image of Rey jumping back in disgust and running away, leaving him alone with this. But somewhere in his turmoil he has room to feel that his face is against something soft, kind fingers are moving through his hair, and there’s a small, warm pressure on his back, sliding between his shoulder blades and down his spine.

He coughs on an overwhelming, gut-wrenching feeling as his nerves alert him to her every touch. His body is confused. These touches don’t hurt. They don’t burn. Rey is holding him, soothing him, and her intentions are loving. It’s all blowing in a whirlwind around him; he can’t fathom this. It makes him cry harder, clutching around her waist, keeping her from going away, because now he won’t survive this if she does.

Rey doesn’t say anything, and he wouldn’t hear her anyway if she did. Eventually he comes back to his body, relaxes into her, and opens his searing eyes. He’s laying across her chest, his cheek against her far shoulder, facing away from her. Rey is turned toward him with her knees bent to allow room for his legs to cross over hers. She smells like garden flowers and is softer than anything. Her right hand is stroking his back, occasionally combing over him with her fingernails. Her left is holding one of his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he says, though he isn’t sure if she can understand his haggard voice.

“It’s okay.” He feels her cheek on the top of his head. “Are you alright?”

“Things piled up I guess,” he says over her shoulder.

Rey combs through his hair with her thumb and forefinger. She says, “It sounds like a lot has been wrong for a long time now.”

He sniffs and breathes out, his body sinking farther onto her. He wants to apologize for being a piece of shit, for being pathetic, for acting weak, for worrying her, for putting her in an awkward position with her friends and family, for being in her life at all. But he’s afraid he will break down again if he voices what is always tossing around in his head, and so he says, “Thanks for understanding.”

Rey says, “Ben, I’m on your side. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. You don’t have to tell me a thing about your past, ever, if you don’t want to. I’m not judging you, I never will. I care about you the way you are. Can you please try to understand that?”

Ben is laying against her in silence, trying to listen, trying to let her words sink in. He wants them to, he really does. Emotion churns at the base of his already raw and abused throat. She asked something of him, and he wants to give it to her. She wants him to believe her.

She is giving him permission to keep his past from her. She’s giving him permission to not scramble for excuses for the things she does find out. The reason she does this escapes him. The reason is like a little streak of light traveling throughout the dark reaches of his mind, trying to plug into something that would understand, that could translate for him a concept he has never been asked to grasp. The streak of light darts around until it gets lost and slows down in despair. It wants to try for a while longer, but it was so very weak to begin with…its life drains away and falters into blackness.

Ben is clutching Rey’s arm next to his face. He bites the end of his thumb until the pain pushes the rising ball of emotion back down. Fuck, this is agony. He’s shaken by a sudden feeling of all-encompassing fear. He’s trying to let something good into his life for once and he can’t do it. Something pure and loving is holding him and accepting him, and he can’t get the cogs to connect. A freezing cold sensation strikes him hard in the face and travels down to his chest where his heart shivers for dear life.     

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” says a voice from far away.

He realizes he’s been trembling. He tries to get a hold of himself. He’s going to worry her more than he already has. With sheer force of will he keeps that tumor of emotion shoved down. It swells and throbs in protest and he doesn’t care, as long as it stays down.

“I can’t, Rey…” Ben is surprised at the forceful sound of desperation in his voice. It seems the emotion trapped in his throat found an outlet at last. He is furious with it. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t…”

“Hey, look at me.” Rey strokes a finger along his jaw, inviting him to turn toward her.

Trapped in this need to always do what she asks, he wrenches himself from her chest and sits up. The blue linen on her shoulder is spotted with tears. Could this get any more humiliating? Could he possibly go lower?

Rey looks over his face as she brushes his hair out of his eyes. Her fingers are so gentle. He leans into them, keeping his lips clamped shut.

“Ben,” she says, bringing her other hand around his neck and rubbing the back of it. He closes his eyes. “Listen, okay? We have nothing but time. You and I – nothing but time.”

He opens his eyes again and the hard look he gives her makes her blink.

“It won’t be enough,” he says.

“Why?”

“It wasn’t enough that I came back. It wasn’t enough that I’ve tried to protect and provide for the people suffering for Snoke’s death ever since. That’s all I can do now and it’s not enough. Nothing I do ever will be. I accept that. I deserve that. I could face hell before you came along.”

“Ben – ”

“But you’re asking for more than that. You want trust. And healing. And happiness someday. And it’s…I could never…tell you…what it means to me that you want that for me…” He’s panting now, and Rey brushes his tears away with her hand. He swallows hard, trying not to let shame pull him through the ground. “But I can’t give you…what you ask…”

“Okay,” says Rey. “Let’s try this. What if our positions were reversed?”

Ben watches her lips as she speaks. And then her eyes when she’s finished.

Rey takes his hands in hers and holds them in her lap. “If I had your life, would you still feel this way?”

Ben is silent for a long time.

She asks an impossible question. Rey would never do what he has done…

…And if anyone ever did to her the things that were done to him, he would cut out their eyes and leave them for dead. And then he would spend every minute of every day helping her recover. He would tell her she is strong, that he is proud of her for staying alive after everything, that she can take her time figuring out how to be okay, as long as she knows he is there for her, that he’ll be with her through any doubts or regrets. He would tell her not to blame herself because he knows her soul – she’s a good person and never wanted any of it, and anyone who says otherwise can fuck themselves. He would promise her he’ll spend the rest of his days protecting her from anyone who might want to hurt her again.  He’d tell her that if she can remember anything in the darkest of times, he wants it to be that he believes in her and always will.

He wasn’t aware that he was sobbing again, but Rey has climbed in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. A boarded-up region of his heart breaks free, releasing an onset of emotion he wasn’t prepared for. He doesn’t have time to do anything to contain himself; he coughs on his tears, mouth open and eyes wide. His body hates him for keeping this inside. Everything he has shoved away for years is released. For a moment he honestly thinks this is the end; his body has turned on him at last after decades of self-abuse, and he’s going to combust.

Rey has him in a tight grasp though, her forehead pressed to his neck, planting dozens of little kisses on his collarbone. His long arms reach around her body and he buries his face in her neck. He’s never been held like this, ever. He’s still hypersensitive to her touches. Each and every kiss and caress jab his heart in a new place.

She really cares about him. She isn’t going anywhere. He forgets to be humiliated. For the first time in his life he is in a safe place.

When his abs are too sore to support the sobs wracking him, he works on taking long, deep breaths. The tremors begin to steady and finally he is left spent, resting on her shoulder.

“Let me stay with you again tonight,” Rey whispers over his ear.

He nods against her neck, not hesitating for a second. Exhaustion fogs up his head. He could sleep for years.

Rey helps him lean back from her, though she remains in his lap, holding her hand over the center of his chest. Ben looks down at her hand and puts his own on top of it. Rey slouches and burrows the side of her face next to their hands.

She is listening to his heartbeat. She has rested against him like this before, but he never realized that was what she was doing.

He holds his lips to the top of her head as she listens, unaware of the minutes passing by. When she sits back at last, she brings his hand with her and holds it to her cheek.

 “Let’s not talk any more about sad things tonight, okay?” says Rey.

Ben watches her, bleary-eyed. He feels half-asleep already.

“I’ll go heat up the dinner I brought,” she says. “Meet you on the back patio. I think we could both use some air.”         

He lets her stand and take her hand away. Ben remains on the floor, watching her walk down the hallway toward the kitchen. He struggles to his feet and blinks away the stars that jump in his vision. He goes in the bathroom to wash his face. The cold water wakes him up a little. He keeps his eyes away from the mirror; he doesn’t need to see what he must look like right now.  

Rey’s bright eyes and loving smile have returned when Ben steps outside onto the patio. She hands him a tall glass of ice water, which he takes gratefully. She has a bowl of steaming pasta sitting next to her on the top stair, with two forks propped on the sides.

Ben isn’t hungry but he humors her by eating a little while they sit side by side, looking out to the field behind Leia’s property. It’s vast and ghostly in the dim moonlight, stretching on for miles past their view. It’s a still summer night and the stars are vivid, each constellation bold and twinkling.

  “So,” Rey says, “Luke and Leia and I are planning a trip sometime this fall to visit our home in the mountains one last time before winter. Will you come with us when we go?”

He rolls his eyes in resignation. She knows he can’t say no to her right now.

“If you want me to,” he says.

She grins and lays her head on his shoulder, looking out at the moonlit field. The vague silhouette of the city skyline is visible on the pink horizon.

“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” says Rey. “I didn’t think the city would ever compare to the mountains.”

“If you say so,” he replies, sleepily.

 Rey continues to chat about the skyline, the field ahead, the city, the mountains, her plans this week, the firepit down below that she’d like to make use of soon. Ben listens in silence, watching her play absentmindedly with his fingers as she talks. She caresses his hand, even kisses his knuckles. He can tell she’s delighted to have access to him now, that it’s in her personality to touch, that’s how she shows affection. It brings the smallest of smiles to his face to be able to give this to her at last. It feels like he’s finally doing something right.

Rey grins back at him, knowing full well he isn’t smiling about the story she just told about the quaint little chocolate shop she found the other day. She tilts her neck back so she can look in his eyes while still leaning on his shoulder.

He nudges her head with his to make her stop looking at him. She chuckles and looks back to the field, holding his hand between hers.


	11. Lines

Something has changed between them. Rey can feel it already, even now in the quiet night, on the top step of the patio stairs. They talk until the last light dips under the horizon…well, she talks, Ben listens, watching the stars more than each other. Her voice becomes softer as her eyelids droop.

Rey knows she is about to lose Ben to sleep when his head dips lower and lower until it is on her shoulder. He says he is only resting, that she smells so nice, but a few minutes later his eyes are closed, and he is no longer responding to his name. Rey relishes the weight of him against her shoulder.

His messy black hair is draped down her arm. He embraces her in his semi-conscious state, his steady breathing as gentle as the night. Rey waits it out as long as she can, and then finally the air becomes a bit too crisp, and she has to wake him.

“Let’s go to bed,” she says.

He groans against her shoulder.

“Come on…”

He allows her to stand and pull him upright, even though his eyes aren’t properly open the whole way to the bedroom. He crawls into bed without removing any clothes.

Rey giggles. “You’re going to have to help me.”

He groans again as she lifts his leg to remove his shoes. He smirks as she struggles to pull off his jeans. Rey is too pleased to see a smile on his face to scold him for not helping her.

“Do you still want me to stay?” she says, with one knee on the bed.

He can’t open his eyes any more, but he reaches toward her, his hand flopping lazily on the mattress.

Rey bends over and kisses his cheek, and then looks around his room for something to wear to bed. She slips off her dress and looks behind her. He’s already dozed off with his arm still extended out. She picks out one of his T shirts from his closet and pulls it over her head. She looks at herself in the wall mirror and smiles.

She climbs into bed next to him and lays down, facing him, watching him. He sleeps so deeply so fast, his eyelids swollen, dark circles beneath his lashes. Rey curls her pinky finger around his.

Things are different now. She’s not sure exactly why or what caused it to change, but she feels it like it’s tangible. Trust. Even the way he’s sleeping here next to her is different from the night before. He isn’t drawn away; he doesn’t startle awake every time she moves. He’s relaxed. Entirely asleep.

Rey breathes softly in the darkness, in the calm, watching him until she can’t keep her eyes open any more. His strong, masculine features are difficult to turn away from. He’s at least twice her size, she’s lucky there’s room on the bed for her.

The T shirt she wears smells like soap, and it smells like him. She feels close to him, like she’s breached some barrier and is now safe on the other side with him where they can finally be together. She hopes so, at least.

Rey understands this is as vulnerable as he gets. He’s risking whatever is left of himself to let her in, let her be close in a way she has a feeling no one ever has before. While it does make her feel special, it is also a cold, empty feeling to know how difficult it is for him to accept something so innocent and pure. And not knowing what it was that left him this way to begin with.

It occurs to her that she is taking a chance too. She is trusting that he cares about her more than his own fears. That he’s not going to continue to push her away when he’s unsure, that he’s not going to break her heart. It’s scary for both of them. She hopes he feels it’s worth it. She thinks it is.

Rey’s eyebrows furrow as she wonders when it was that she fell for him. Here it is, safe and whole inside her and she didn’t realize. It was probably after some small thing, like when they were sitting together in the garden, or after he handed her a cup of tea on a rainy day. It might have been in his kitchen, cutting vegetables together. Or the first time he put a flower behind her ear. He might have had the hiccups, or asked her to show him her sketchbook, or done nothing at all, except look into her eyes and smile.

Or maybe it was more serious than that. Maybe it was after he took care of her that day when she felt so lost and alone, when she felt scared and helpless with memories of the past poisoning her mind. He was there, he was everything she needed him to be. He, who had not wanted to pursue even a friendship with her in the beginning for fear of being touched, lifted her up in his arms and brought her somewhere safe, where he could be there for her while she recovered.

Maybe it’s all of it. Maybe there wasn’t one moment when it happened. Each small gesture, bend, compromise, smile, tease, inkling of trust, and moment of faith has filled her up, like water pouring into a vase, until finally she was full. And she knew.

She wants to wake him and whisper in his ear, “Ben, I love you…” and kiss him until the sun rises. But a frown bends her lips as she holds his hand and stares at the raw, red lines across the base of his eyelids. She can’t do that now. He wouldn’t believe her. He wouldn’t tolerate it. He would consider it proof that this really is a game she’s playing. It’s too much for one night.

She nestles down to his chest and listens to his heart’s languid rhythm. She knows it hurts. It has much of his life. Her heart has hurt to. But she’s had Luke ever since she was twelve. Ben’s only had her. And Rey hopes with everything she has that she will be enough.

           

Ben wakes up before Rey, when the sky is still dark. He looks down at her face pressed against his pillow, her lips parted and her relaxed fist in front of her nose. He brushes her messy hair out of her face with one gentle stroke of his hand and pulls the blanket over her bare shoulder. He slides down the length of the bed and stands, trying not to disturb her.

He feels a hundred years old, heavy, and tired. He goes to his desk and opens his laptop. There’s an alerted encrypted message waiting for him.

It reads, “Plan unsuccessful. Updated death toll: 26. Thanks for trying, anyway.”

Ben shuts the laptop slowly, stands up, walks out of the bedroom, out the patio door to the stairs where he and Rey were sitting last night, stands still for about ten seconds…and then starts kicking the wooden railing until it splinters away from its nails and comes crashing down to the lawn.

Panting, he storms back inside and beelines for his room. He stuffs a few things in the backpack he first arrived with and makes for the door. He reaches for the handle and then stops suddenly, looking over his shoulder at Rey’s back, rising and falling.

A stab of regret threatens to make him turn around and wake her, or at least kiss her forehead goodbye. But if he ever wants to feel worthy of her, he needs to do this. It needs to be finished.

           

Rey wakes an hour later to an empty bed. She wishes she could say she was surprised.

 

That evening, for the first time since Ben moved to the guest house, Rey doesn’t see Ben’s light on across the garden. She picks up her pillow and hugs it as she sits against the window sill, looking out into the darkness. The plants' silhouettes wave in the wind.  

She wets her lips and rests the side of her head against the glass. She exhales forcefully through her nose, her lips puckered in a frown. She shakes her head and takes out her phone.

She looks at his name displayed on the screen, where it has been waiting for a couple hours. Finally, she presses her thumb to it. Her exhales are still sharp. She knows he’s not going to answer, but she’s not going to let him get away with this. She _knows_ he’s coming back. He’s not fooling her. His family might consider him forever at flight risk, but Rey knows better. He’s not going to leave for good. Not anymore.

The call goes to voicemail; a cold robotic voice listing off a number like that’s all he is. Rey ends the call with a harsh tap of her finger. She huffs out again, pinching the bridge of her nose, clenching her phone.

Then she taps his name again, waiting through the rings for the stupid robot again so she can give him a piece of her mind.

And then, to her utter shock, the ring ends midway, and she hears Ben’s deep voice say, “Hello.”

She pauses a moment, taken off guard, trying to remember what she was going to say. What was it? – Where are you? Why did you leave? When will you be back? What on earth are you thinking?

She lets out a breath.

“Are you okay?” she asks, defeated, her frustration deflating into melancholy.

He makes a noise like the start of an ironic laugh.

“Yeah,” he says.

Rey leans her head back against the window. “Are you somewhere safe?”

“I’m where I need to be right now.”

Rey frowns. She wants to say if it’s not with her, it’s not where he needs to be. Instead, she says, “Okay.”

“It’s good to hear your voice.” He sounds tired.

Rey nods even though he can’t see her.

“I’m going to be gone a few days,” he says. “Maybe longer. I have things I need to finish. Do you understand?”

Rey understands there are words unspoken between them. She understands that Finn’s reminder of Ben’s crimes, whatever they are, have set off some sort of chain reaction. She understands he’s been carrying a heavy burden on his shoulders. A weight of remorse, grief, things he hasn’t shared, things she doesn’t know.

Rey does understand, at the least, that this has nothing to do with her. Or maybe that it has everything to do with her.

Rey still hasn’t answered him, and she hears Ben’s tired sigh.

“I didn’t help them when it mattered,” says his weary voice. “But I will now.”

“Who?”

“Everyone.”

Silence hovers over the line.

“People depended on the First Order.” Rey can tell from the strain in his voice that he doesn’t want to be talking about this. “For all it hurt it also helped. It provided protection to people who needed it. At a cost. Paid debts. At a cost. Now I need to pay that price. The end of my master was not the end of their suffering.”

Rey bites her lip, looking over at his dark window across the garden. “What are you going to do?”

“Finish what I started three months ago.”

“Ben, please…I need to know you’re safe.”

“I’m not the one in danger,” he says impatiently. “I’m probably the only one who is safe. And I need to use that. There’s only so much I can do from behind a computer screen. It’s going to drag on forever unless I get this over with now. Do you understand?”

“Okay, Ben,” Rey says. “I understand.”

“Alright.” He pauses, awkwardly. “Thanks.”

“Did you have to go without saying goodbye?” The words leave her before she can stop herself.

Ben sighs again. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

There is a long pause as Rey continues to lean against the window, listening to Ben’s breathing. Minutes go by and Rey wishes she could see him. This is the first day in a long time that she hasn’t. A crackle of lightning lights up the sky and a heavy roar of thunder rumbles the ground. She hopes he’s somewhere dry and warm.

“Ben?” Rey says at last.

“Yeah.”

“Come home soon, okay?”

“I will.”

The patter of rain begins to hit Rey’s window. She shivers and pulls her blanket over her shoulders.

Rey doesn’t know what else to say. Everything she can think of sounds stupid or futile. I miss you. Be safe. Hurry. It’s all pointless. Will finishing this make you happy? Will we be able to move on now? Is there a world in which you’ll forgive yourself? Is there a world in which you’ll learn to rely on me? All irrelevant. All hopeless in this moment.

And so she says, “Bye.”

It takes Ben a minute to scan over the list of things he would like to say or explain before he, too, answers softly, “Bye.”

 

The week passes and Rey heads off to a park near Kenobi Studios for her lunch break. The sun is hot and blinding so she selects a spot under an oak tree and settles down to a sandwich Leia made for her. She pulls out her notebook and sketches over her knee for twenty minutes as the sounds of children playing and birds chirping fill the air.

“Rey!” a voice calls from across the grassy lawn.

Rey looks up to see Finn jogging along the path in his athletic wear. She waves at him as he veers off and makes his way to her tree.

He flops to the ground in front of her.

“Hi,” he pants.

“Hi.”

Finn lays on his back and wipes the sweat from his eyes as his chest bounces up and down. “Hot day, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” says Rey. “I’m glad the studio is air conditioned.”

Finn sits up and squirts his water bottle over his head. “How’s your week been?”

“Pretty uneventful,” she says. “Yours?”

“Oh, busy busy.” He takes a long drink of water and looks down at the grass. He glances up at her and then back down. “Rey, I know you’ve been ignoring my calls.”

Rey doesn’t say anything but looks down at the same patch of grass he is staring at.

“All I wanted to say was I’m sorry,” says Finn.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, I went about it all wrong.” Finn looks at her and Rey meets his sincere, dark brown eyes. “My favorite thing about you since the day we met is how respectful you are. You don’t gossip or judge or think badly of anybody. Anyone who counts themselves one of your friends should feel honored – to know their secrets are safe with you and that you genuinely care about them. I know that’s how I feel. So, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t kind, and it wasn’t right. I’m truly sorry.”

Rey tilts her head and considers him. “Thanks, Finn.”

“I promise I won’t say another thing about him. If there’s good inside anyone, you’d be the one to find it. Still friends?”

Rey grins. “Yes, of course.”

Finn grins back, looking relieved. “Alright, well I need to head out but thanks for talking with me.”

Rey nods and watches him stretch briefly before setting back out on his jog.

“Is anything going on this weekend?” Rey asks.

“Always! Rose and I are going to a friend’s art gala. It’s right up your alley – would you like to come?”

“Sure,” says Rey. “I’d love to.”

“Great!” Finn looks much happier than when he first arrived. “I’ll call you later!”

Rey smiles as he jogs away, and she packs up her notebook and returns to the studio.

“Miss Skyla, can I ask a favor?” says Master Kenobi from his office as Rey steps back inside the studio.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Would you mind staying a little late this afternoon to go over lesson plans for our fall classes?” He hands her a glass of iced tea and proceeds to the lobby to turn up the air conditioning.

“Oh, well I would, but the bus switches to a different route after 6. I could call my aunt and see if she could pick me up.”

“Where do you live?”

“On the southeast side of town – in the Chandrila enclave.”

Master Kenobi raises his eyebrows. “I had no idea I paid you so well.”

Rey grins and shakes her head. “My aunt is a retired Senator.”

He winks and says, “Well, you’re only about fifteen minutes away from my son’s daycare. I would be glad to offer you a ride home if you would like.”

“Oh,” says Rey. “Okay, sure, if you really don’t mind.”

“Excellent.”

Once they finish their lesson planning (Rey gets to teach an intermediate class in the fall), Master Kenobi takes her to his old station wagon and opens the passenger side door for her, moving sippy cups and toy trucks off the seat.

“Have you learned to drive yet?” he asks as he pulls out into the street.

“Yes, I have my permit now,” says Rey, rolling down her window.

“I apologize for the lack of air conditioning; the repair appointment isn’t until next week.”

“That’s okay,” says Rey. “There was no AC in the mountains, obviously, so I’m used to the heat. The cold, too, actually.”

Master Kenobi shakes his head. “Sometimes I forget you were a hermit in the mountains, practicing Aikido in your adolescence instead of sneaking out to parties in the city. It’s like you came straight out of an action movie.”

“It’s not as hard core as it sounds,” says Rey, laughing.

“I don’t know, I’m not sure you’re fooling anyone with that. Not everyone is cut out for simplicity. I find it a virtue, personally.” Master Kenobi pulls onto the highway and leans back in his seat as he speeds up. “By the way, I was going to ask if you would like to continue practicing together once summer classes are over. The break’s a little over a month, I wasn’t sure if you had vacation plans…”

“No, I don’t,” says Rey.

“Then what do you say? Maybe a couple times a week we could meet? You’re of course welcome to continue helping yourself to the gym anytime.”

“Thank you, Master Kenobi. I’d love to practice with you.”

“Excellent. Though one of these days I’d like to hear you call me Jacen.”

Rey looks ahead with an embarrassed smile.

“So, how old is your son?” Rey asks a while later. “I don’t think you ever told me you had kids.”

“Only the one,” says Jacen. “He’s two and a half.”

“That’s nice. I should warn you before we pick him up, I haven’t really ever been around children before.”

Jacen chuckles. “Goodness, you should have told me sooner. I’ll need to prepare you for the noise level and the potential for the back of your head to be pelted with plastic toys.”

Rey giggles. “Does he look very much like you?”

“No, he’s the spitting image of his mother. White-blond hair, dark brown eyes.”

“Sounds beautiful,” says Rey. “What does your wife do for work?”

“My wife is no longer with us,” says Jacen.

Rey tries not to make her gasp audible. “Oh…I’m so sorry.”

Jacen smiles, sadly. “She was killed in a car accident about a year ago. Drunk driver. Milo was in the car, too. Not a scratch on him.”

Rey gawks at him. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. How awful....”

“Thank you, Rey. We’re getting by. It hasn’t been easy. But my boy is the best behaved two-year-old you will ever meet. He is the joy of my life. Here we are – that red brick building straight ahead. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Rey waits in the hot car, watching her boss walk away with that light air about him, like he carries no burdens. She wonders how one can achieve that kind of peace after having such terrible things happen. He returns a few minutes later, holding a sleepy towheaded boy and a Ghost Busters backpack.

Rey steps out of the car as they approach.

“Rey, I’d like you to meet Milo,” Jacen says, craning his neck to look down at his son.

“Hi, Milo,” Rey says, nervously, having no clue how to interact with a toddler.

The boy looks away from her and turns into his father’s chest, gripping his shirt.

“He’s a little shy,” says Jacen, and bends over to strap him into his car seat.

Rey takes the backpack he’s holding and puts it in the backseat, trying to be helpful. They get back in the car and drive away. Milo is already nodding off in his car seat.

“He’s really very beautiful, Jacen,” says Rey quietly.

Jacen looks at her briefly and smiles. “Thank you.”

Rey keeps glancing in the review mirror at the sleeping boy behind her. His dark eyelashes are forever long and his dear little lips pudge out in his sleep.

“I think you’re a bit smitten,” says Jacen.

Rey grins. “He’s so precious. I’ve always wanted to meet a baby.”

“Wait until he wakes up. He’s a good boy usually, but that little voice of his reaches nearly lethal octaves.”

Rey laughs. “Yeah, but that little voice also calls you ‘Papa’.”

Jacen smiles sadly again. “Maybe someday it will. He’s never spoken a word.”

Rey looks at him and then back in the review mirror at the boy. “Oh.”

They finish the remainder of the drive in companionable silence. Rey is concerned that her comments have upset him, but if they have, he doesn’t show it. He drives with a resting smile on his face, admiring at the lush trees they pass serenely.

“It’s the next house on the right,” says Rey.

He pulls into Leia’s driveway, leaning forward to get a better look at all the trees.

“What a gorgeous home,” he says.

“Yes, I think so too. Would you and Milo like to come inside? You’re both welcome to join us for dinner.”

“Thank you, but no. Perhaps another time?”

“Sure. Bye, Milo,” Rey whispers behind her.

“Goodnight, Rey. Thank you for staying late. See you in the morning.”

The old car drives off and Rey watches it snake through the trees, heading back to the highway. She feels a newfound affection for her boss and the tiny human in his back seat. What a beautiful family.

           

When the weekend hits, Rey positively skips out of the studio, calling ‘Goodbye, see you Monday!’ to Jacen, and heads down the sidewalk. She’s excited to see Finn and Rose and spend the evening with them.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she assumes it’s Finn. But it’s not – the screen reads, ‘Ben Solo’. Her heart leaps to her throat and she answers it.

“Hi!” she says.

“Hi, Rey.” That deep, lovely voice of his is music to her ears.

“Are you back?”

“I’m about to be.” He pauses a few seconds and then says, “Can I see you?”

Rey grins as the sweeping summer breeze tosses her hair behind her.

“I’d love to see you, Ben. I’d love that so so much.”

The tone of his voice lightens as he responds, “Are you free tonight?”

Rey pouts. “Well, I have plans with friends in a couple hours, but – ”

“That’s okay,” he says quickly. “No problem.”

“I was going to say you should come. We’re going to an art gala at the Kanata Gallery at 8:00 and I’m just killing time until then. It finally cooled off a little so I’m walking from work.”

“It’s alright,” he says. “Have a good time with your friends. I’m pretty tired anyway.”

“Okay,” she says, trying to hide her disappointment. “Can I take you out for a frozen yogurt tomorrow?”

She hears a faint chuckle.

“That would be really nice,” he says.

Rey smiles, walking past a small garden in front of a school. She gets a whiff of the daffodils and thinks of the backyard garden she shares with him. And she thinks of Ben, tall and handsome, waiting for her at the benches by the bird feeders. Two weeks is much too long, she thinks with a sore heart.

“Rey?” He breaks the silence.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve missed you.”

She smiles again. “I’ve missed you, too.”

There’s a gentle pause between them and Rey continues walking past some neighborhood hedges.

Then he says, “Have a good night, Rey. I – um…can’t wait to see you.”

Rey shivers at how deep his voice is tonight. Has something changed? Or has she already forgotten the sound of his voice?

“Me too,” she says. “Goodnight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I've taken a lot of time to do some writing and outlining ahead, so I have a really good idea where this is going and how we're going to get there. I'm estimating about 32 chapters total. Word count wise, it's looking like it'll be quite a bit longer than my last fic, Between It All. That wasn't my intention when I started, but oh well! Hope everyone's enjoying so far :)


	12. Gala

It’s the first time Rey has spent any real time alone in the city. As the purple-blue sky dims around the skyscrapers, the city comes alive. Lights are speckled over everything. Music, laughter roam the streets. Some shops are closing up and others are just opening. Rey goes wherever there are people. She wants to belong to it all.

After stopping at an outdoor merchant stand and forking out for an over-priced peacock blue kimono that she absolutely loves, she saunters over to a collection of tents in a park, swinging her arms broadly, loving life. She checks out the banner at the park’s entrance. It’s a craft fair, open for another couple hours. Perfect!

She browses through the first few jewelry tents, thinking she’d like to find something for Leia. It’s not until Rey meets a ninety-five-year-old woman sitting on a stool at the very last station that she finds what she’s after. Rey picks out a necklace that has a simple delicate outline of a mountain range for a pendant. Leia will always think of her when she wears it, her adoring niece from the mountains. Rey thinks maybe she’ll hold onto it for a Christmas present.

She moves on to the western edge of the tents and makes her way up and down the rows. She stops at a stand that’s covered with the most intricate handmade model airplanes. The friendly vendor with a grizzled auburn beard tells her he also sells kits to make your own. Rey thinks of Ben instantly. She’s seen him build them before, it’s one of his favorite pass times. Another Christmas present!

While she’s picking out the model she wants, a young man comes up and stands by her side. He takes the kit she is holding right out of her hands and presents it back to her with emphasis.

“This is high quality stuff,” the young man says. “No kidding. I bought a Sopwith Camel from this guy last year.”

Rey can’t help but chuckle at his deadpan, serious face. A second later it breaks out into a charming smile.

“Sold then,” says Rey, taking the model back from him.

The guy says, “Have you ever built one before?”

Rey says, “No, I was intending this to be a gift. But maybe it’s something we can build together.”

“Something we can build together…” he mumbles slowly. “Yes, I agree, I’d love to!”

“Oh, I – ”

But he is laughing.

“Pulling your leg,” he says. “Who will it be for, then?”

“Well – my boyfriend.”

The word sounds foreign and delightful at the same time. Rey fights back an awkward smile.

“I have almost three hundred of these at home,” he says, perusing the stand. “Hey, have you seen the guy a few rows over who sells model trains? There’s this wooden one…can I show you?”

He beckons her to follow him and giggling at his unusual familiarity, she does.

“I’m Poe, by the way,” he says over his shoulder, his large brown eyes bright and cheerful.

Rey grins. “Rey.”

She takes out her phone as she follows Poe, who swerves past the crowds of shoppers, and sends a text to Ben – “I just told a stranger I had a boyfriend.”

“Here!” says Poe, approaching the stand he wanted to show her.

He looks behind him and realizes a large couple is preventing Rey from being able to join his side. He reaches past them, takes Rey’s hand, and pulls her over, knocking the offended couple out of the way. Rey lets out a shriek and laughs as Poe situates her right in front of the table, pointing to each of his favorite trains.

“So, do you frequent craft fairs often?” asks Poe as they continue to make their way down the row.

“No, I haven’t before, but it’s lots of fun!”

He nods happily. “I go most Fridays in the summer. You must come again with me next week – they usually have a few new stations each time.”

Rey can’t help but grin as he chats on and on like they’ve been friends for years. Poe introduces her to a woodworker who makes decorative furniture and a very kind elderly woman who sells pies. Poe seems to know everyone, merchants and customers alike. All the while he keeps Rey at his side, introducing her to all the people he keeps running into; friends, distant relatives, co-workers, even strangers sometimes.

They spend almost an hour trotting around the fair, laughing pretty near to constantly as Poe whips her around from station to station. He has asked her every question under the sun it seems and tells her more about himself than Rey has learned about any of her new friends since moving to the city.

Realizing he’s apparently not going to let her go anywhere without him, Rey invites him to come with her to a food truck. They are sitting on a park bench in front of a creek, Poe struggling to contain his oversized pita, when Rey remembers the text she sent to Ben. She nearly chokes on her lettuce wrap and instantly takes her phone out of her pocket. Sure enough, there’s a text from him waiting.

She lets out one steadying breath and opens it. It says, “I hope you were referring to me.”

Rey is sure her face has turned magenta and hopes Poe doesn’t notice because he would most certainly interrogate her. But Poe is busy messing with his own phone, so she types a quick reply – “Of course.”

“Alright, where to next?” says Poe after they throw away their wrappers.

Rey laughs. “I actually need to get going. I’m meeting some friends at an art gala a few blocks away.”

“Are you now? That sounds fascinating.”

“Would you like to join? You can meet my friends!”

Poe nods enthusiastically. “I’d love to!”

As they walk toward the city sidewalk, Poe reaches for the bag she is carrying.

“Can I see what you bought?” he asks.

“Oh, sure, it’s only the model plane and a necklace for my Aunt Leia.”

Poe opens the jewelry box and admires the silver piece.

“Very nice,” he says, “but you told me you don’t have any living relatives.”

“She’s not really my aunt,” says Rey. “She’s Luke’s twin sister. Luke is…was my guardian. When I was still a minor.”

Poe stops dead in his tracks and Rey continues several paces before noticing he isn’t walking with her anymore. She turns around and cocks her head.

“What is it, Poe?”

He stares at her, astonished. “Your 'not really' aunt…you wouldn’t be referring to Leia Organa, would you?”

Rey groans. “You really do know everyone, don’t you?”

“I worked with her for years!” he exclaims. “I know her well – we worked on the First Order project together before her term was up. She’s a hell of a woman. Did some great things for this city when she was in office.”

“It seems like everyone knows everyone in this enormous city.”

“This is wild, you’re going to have to invite me over for lunch some time!”

Rey laughs. “Oh am I?”

“Oh, yes, she’ll never agree on her own terms, she always thought I was a pompous socialite. I so loved that woman. How is she?”

Rey proceeds to tell Poe about Leia, omitting the fact that her husband recently passed, and her estranged son is back in her life. She thought those details were a bit private for someone whom Leia hardly regarded as a coworker, much less a friend. Poe presses for more and more details until at last, Rey is saved when she sees Finn and Rose waiting for her at the gallery’s entrance.

Rose waves her over and Rey says, “Hey! Can I borrow your keys so I can put my bag in your car? This is my new friend, Poe, we met just now at a craft fair. Poe, this is Rose and Finn.”

Rey is about to trot off toward Rose’s car, when she is halted by the look on Finn’s face. His jaw is slack, his eyes are protruding from his head, and there’s a kind of nervous energy Rey has never before sensed from him. Finn has never been anything but cool and confident in public; outgoing, friendly. For a moment she wonders if maybe he’s ill, but she follows his gaze. He looks directly at Poe. And Poe has almost the same expression.

Rose, who had tried to say hello to Poe with no reply, looks back at Finn and then between the two. Her face begins to form a small frown.

Poe finally remembers himself and offers a half smile. “Hi there, Rose. And it’s – uh – good to see you again, Finn.”

Rey isn’t sure why she didn’t see this coming. Poe knows everybody. Why wouldn’t he know her friends too? But why are they looking at each other like that? It’s as though they are surprised to find the other on the same planet.

“ _Finn_ ,” Rose mutters under her breath.

Finn clears his throat. “It’s…you too.”

Finn stares at him a moment more and then breaks eye contact, resuming his normal behavior as though Poe isn’t there. He gives Rey a big hug and tells her they’ll meet her inside once she’s dropped off her things in the car.

“Do you…want to come with me?” says Rey quietly to him.

He shakes his head briefly and puts an arm around Rose, leading her inside the gallery, talking loudly about the exquisite painting in the window.

Rey frowns at his back.

“Do _you_ want to come with me?” Rey asks Poe.

Poe offers a polite smile and says, “No, that’s alright, I’ll get us some wine.”

Rey goes to the car alone, her frown deepening. When she returns and goes inside, Finn and Rose are at one end of the gallery in front of a wall sized painting, and Poe is standing by the drinks, deep in conversation with an acquaintance he ran into.

 Rey walks over to Finn and Rose first. She asks them how their days were, where they went for dinner, and which style of art is their favorite. Rose speaks with her conversationally, but Finn gives flat, distracted answers, his eyes continually darting to the far corner of the gallery. Eventually Rose loses steam and begins to wander off on her own, looking at a display of photography with a scowl on her face. Rey runs out of things to ask Finn about, and it’s useless anyway, he isn’t listening to a word she says.

“Finn,” Rey says.

“Huh?” he answers brightly, looking back at her with an over-large smile on his face.

“What is going on?”

“What d’you mean? Lovely pieces here, don’t you think? Did you see that sculpture over there costs half a million dollars…?”

“Finn,” she says again.

“What?”

“What is going on?”

They stare at each other for a full minute before Finn’s smile finally fades.

 “Nothing, Rey,” he says between his teeth.

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Drop it, okay? I can’t do this right now.” And he sets off toward a large collection of easels in the center of the room and starts up a conversation with an older woman, pointing emphatically at a large charcoal portrait.

Rey presses her lips together in frustration and marches to the other end where Poe is still standing by the drinks, holding two glasses of wine.

“Is one of those for me?” Rey asks dryly.

“Of course,” he says, handing her one with relish. “Great pieces here, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, they’re wonderful,” says Rey impatiently. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Finn?”

“Oh…Yeah, I met him a few years ago. Around the time I last saw Leia, too, actually, towards the end of our First Order project. Leia and I kinda fell out of contact once it was over, you know how it goes. Anyway, I better be heading out, but hey – it was great meeting you, Rey, it’s been a blast.”

He downs the rest of his drink, sets the glass on a table, and heads for the exit. Rey remains by the drink table and watches him go, aghast. When he pushes the door open, he looks over his shoulder and nods at Rey to follow him. She puts her glass down and rushes after him.

Poe looks a little pale under the street light. He paces between the lamp post and the trash can by the front door, holding his hands behind his back.

“Truth is,” says Poe to Rey as she stands by the door watching him, “I met Finn _because_ of Leia’s project. We only knew each other for a heartbeat. No big deal. I’m going to go because I don’t want to make things awkward. It really was nice to meet you. Could I have your number? I’m going to hold you to that lunch.”

“Sure,” says Rey, taking his phone. “It was nice to meet you too. Thanks for spending the evening with me.”

Poe takes his phone back, nods to her in farewell, and heads back toward the park. Rey sighs and looks back inside the gallery. She isn’t really having much fun in there. Perhaps she should go home. Finn and Rose probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

But as she turns to leave, a deep, familiar voice speaks from behind her.

“Hi, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it was a quick little chapter. I'll post another in a couple days :)


	13. Soft Things

Rey spins around and standing under the street lamp where Poe just stood, is Ben. She gasps, a smile springs to life on her face, and she runs toward him. She stops directly in front of him, beaming.

Having spent the last several hours with Poe, seeing Ben now is a noticeable contrast. Ben is so much taller, clad in dark clothes, dark everything. He doesn’t have the extroverted personality, the positive energy, the easy conversation, or the lighthearted nature. To be perfectly honest, looking at him now, he is a bit brooding.

But he is hers.

To Rey’s surprise, Ben unfolds his arms, brings two rough hands beneath her jaw, and kisses her. His lips are as soft as she remembers, his familiar smell warms her heart, and the strong but gentle way he holds her makes her weak at the knees.

Rey feels silly with delight.

 “I’m so happy to see you!” she says. “I didn’t think you would come.”

He shrugs, back to his usual awkward composure.  

 “Have you been home yet?” she asks.

“No.” He picks up a strand of her hair and runs his thumb down the length of it. “I was on my way back, but I’ve been going a little crazy with what you’ve been texting me.”

Rey blushes and wonders if she’s ever going to stop being so girlish with him.

Ben looks down sheepishly. “I thought I’d surprise you. And apologize again for being gone so long. I wanted you to know… I’m finished with what I needed to do.”

Rey gazes up at him, the light of the street lamp shining in her eyes. “I’m really glad to hear that.”

Ben offers a brief smile and places the strand of hair back on her shoulder.

“Next time,” Rey says, watching his fingers at her collarbone, “just tell me what’s going on. Okay?”

He frowns in shame and drops his hand to his side.

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” he says.

Rey nods slowly and reaches for his hand again, curling her fingers around his fist until he opens it. “Still. I’d like us to be honest with each other.”

Ben looks at her tenderly, admiring the little freckles on her nose.

“Okay,” he says.

“Good.” She grins and steps into him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight. She feels his chin on the top of her head.

“So, do we go in?” Ben eyes the art gallery with not so well-hidden dread.

“Nah,” says Rey, stepping to his side with one arm still around him. “I think I’m done in there.”

They start to walk down the sidewalk. Ben continues to hold the small of her back as they go and Rey feels lighter than air, all thoughts of Finn and Poe abolished from her brain.

“Rey?” says Ben.

“Yes?”

“If we’re going to be honest, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Who was that? The guy you were swapping numbers with?”

“Oh,” says Rey. A concerning thought occurs to her. Poe knows everyone. Poe knows Leia. Poe knows Finn. Poe worked with Leia against the First Order. Chances are…

“His name is Poe Dameron,” says Rey, not looking at him. “I just met him tonight before the gala began.”

 “Okay,” says Ben. “And…this is stupid, but…I don’t need to be worried?”

Rey looks up at him, her mind catching up. She realizes they are concerned about two very different things.

“Oh!” Rey cries. “No…no, of course not.”

“Yeah,” he says, indifferently. “Yeah, I figured.”

Rey continues to look at him, watching the pink rise on his cheeks.

“So, you haven’t heard of him?” she asks.

“What? No, should I have?”

“No.” Rey nuzzles against his side, stretching her other arm around him to hold her own hand against his hip. “I guess not.”

They arrive at his car, parked on the side of the street.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” Ben asks. “I didn’t mean to make you turn in early.”

“I don’t care as long as I get to be with you. I’ve missed you so much. What if we go for a little night drive? Find somewhere private to park for a while?”

Ben gives her a look. Rey realizes the implications of what she said, and a sheepish grin grows on her face along with a terrible blush. She straightens her smile and raises her chin, feigning confidence. His eyes bore into hers and his teeth rest on his bottom lip. He looks amused.

“Whatever you want,” he says.

 They speed along an old frontage road until Ben pulls off to the top of a slope overlooking the city. The congested lights are speckled ahead of them like fireflies. Rey gasps at the view. Ben kills the engine and turns to her, waiting for her to say or do something with a smirk on his face.

Rey grins and shakes her head.

“You’re making fun of me,” she says. “You’re always making fun of me.”

He places his thumb on her lips and drags it down to her chin where his pointer finger rests.

Rey begins to inspect the dash and with an excited gasp, presses the button to the sunroof. The little window above slides open and moonlight spills in the car. Rey sits up on her knees and pokes her head out the roof. The cool summer breeze tussles her hair.

“Come up here with me!”

Ben is unable to hide his amusement at her perpetual silliness. Rey expects him to refuse, but after struggling to fold his long legs under him, he shifts up beside her. He looks down at her head against his chest before turning toward the scenery.

Rey nuzzles against him and takes a deep breath of night air. The fresh petrichor combined with Ben’s scent is intoxicating.

“I never want you to go away again,” Rey says softly.

Ben chuckles, a low rumble in her ear. “It’s really nice to hear you say that.”

Rey closes her eyes against him, loving the warmth and the closeness. She pouts when her knees become too sore to ignore and she has to sit back down in the car.

 “Since we’re being honest,” says Rey, as they settle back in their seats, “I’d like you to explain to me how you could buy a car like this and not realize at least some women would throw themselves at you for a closer look.”

Ben lets out a surprised bark of laughter. He leans back and puts his hand over his forehead.

“Since we’re being honest,” he says, “I never expected in a hundred years I would have a woman in my car. Not one like you, anyway.”

“Hmm,” says Rey. “I’m going to politely call BS.”

He sighs a weaker chuckle and waves his hand dismissively, looking back toward the city.

“I bought it because I liked it,” he says. “I bought it because it was my father’s favorite car. He bought an old model when he was younger, and I spent half my childhood in the back seat. Usually waiting on the side of the road while he was under the hood cussing at it.”

“Oh,” says Rey. She tilts her head as she watches him in awe. He’s never mentioned his father before. “Ben, that’s so sweet.”

He shrugs. “It was another life.”

Rey offers a small smile that he returns. And then he turns away again.

Ben absentmindedly fiddles with the steering wheel, the calm, silent night breathing peace around them. Moonlight touches his hand, which he turns over to observe the silver light bend and disappear in the shadow of his fist. He stares at his hand because for some reason he can’t look at Rey anymore.

Despite the relief he feels from being with her again, it feels like there is also a splinter in his heart that’s been edging deeper all night. He can’t tell if the splinter is there because he’s so happy to see her again that it aches, or if he’s anxious about being happy at all. The splinter digs in again at a fresh angle and he accepts that it’s probably the latter.

He can’t look at her because something new accompanies them now, after this soft night. Calm and peaceful moments have passed between them. It’s not something he’s prepared to face. So he doesn’t. He can’t.

He senses Rey’s loving energy next to him. Her affection is ambient, pouring forth from her graciously. He feels like he needs to scramble to find a big enough container to catch it all. And he can’t find one. All he has are strainers and petri dishes.

He still hasn’t fully shaken the shame from the last time they were together. He is in a constant state of vulnerability now because she has seen him at his worst, and he can’t come back from that. Can’t erase it, can’t make her forget. And that night produced something far worse than humiliation.

She convinced him to accept her touch, her comfort, her assurances that he is safe with her, and she with him. To him, it’s like trusting a parachute. He’s forced to rely on it now that he has it, yet there’s an unimaginable fear in the back of his mind that it’s going to break at any moment.

He is in no state to be in a relationship with her. It’s not only laughable, it’s insanity. Yet he’s never wanted anything more in his entire life. Discovering that he is capable of making her happy is by far his greatest accomplishment. It’s his purest form of pride.

His precious Rey, smiling at him now in his car while he thinks and stews about such things. Even now he is making her happy. All because he’s here, because he came back. He sees how her eyes glow when he looks at her. He sees how she beams when he accepts her touches and when he offers his own freely.

It isn’t hard. Being with her is as easy as breathing. Easier. As it is, the comfortable ease of their conversations, the pure acceptance, the unconditional support, the way they walk alongside each other, make meals together, go out on the town, listen to music, watch movies, live a normal, pleasant existence together – it’s like they function as one unit, like they’ve been together all their lives.

The biggest regret he has from that shitty day after that cursed dream two weeks ago, he realizes, isn’t that he let her see him broken down…it’s that he didn’t call her as soon as he woke up that morning. That he didn’t begin his day hearing her soft voice say, “Oh, good morning, Ben!” and that he didn’t proceed to tell her sometimes he has nightmares, and could she please come over when she has a chance and spend the day with him? He knows she would have dropped anything to do that. He knows because he would have done the same for her.

He wishes, in this ideal scenario where he doesn’t push away the only person who has managed to reach him, that she would have come over first thing that morning. And when she walked in, he would have wrapped his arms around her, let her wrap her arms around him, and picked up where they had left off the night before, kissing from morning until night so nothing could possibly go wrong.

The stitch in his heart twists with regret. Instead, he closed off. Spent the day in pain when she was just across the way. Rey would have sent Finn packing in a second if she knew he needed her. Ben knows that. Instead, he sat by, listening to every word that asshole said, letting him talk like he knows him, like he has a fucking clue what he’s talking about. And not pausing for one second before assuming Rey will reject him now. Hate him. Leave him.

And even after she didn’t, even after she stayed, he still didn’t have the balls to say, “I’m never going to be able to sleep at night if I don’t go back and help these people who relied on the First Order. I’ve got to be there, or it’s never going away.” He didn’t say, “Please come with me.” He didn’t say, “I’d like you with me for this.” He didn’t say, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

No, he pulled away again. Lost himself in the muck again, the fears and the doubts. Gave in to the inner voice that points out rather convincingly that every piece of himself he shares with her can be used against him. He allowed himself to imagine that painful fantasy of Rey’s precious voice saying terrible things to him. Her ethereal eyes looking straight at him while she says, “I found out everything. You’re shit for what you’ve done to your family. You’re shit for what you’ve done to your friends. You’re shit now, you were shit before, and I never want to see you again.” And then every part of his flesh she’s ever touched will ignite and burn. And he’ll never again get to hear her laugh or see her smile or feel her embrace.

He gave in, like he always does. And even now he gives in. Because even now, those horrors are still a possibility. This stunning girl is sitting next to him in his car, moonlight spilling over her hair, shining off the left half of her face, and he does nothing. He does nothing. Because he is nothing.

“Hey,” says Rey, snapping him out of his reverie, “you’re looking a little murderous. Were you aware?”

She’s teasing. Her lips are drawn in a smirk.

She’s never once scolded him for being so negative and depressed all the time. Sometimes a gentle teasing is all he needs to pull him out of it. A reminder that not everything is the end of the world, not everything is out to get him. They are together now. These kinds of thoughts are meant for another time, and he should enjoy any moment that includes her while it lasts.

He loves her for this – more than any other form of comfort she gives him – her ability to know when to make light of his runaway, self-deprecating thoughts, and when to take them seriously.

He doesn’t know what expression is on his face now, but hers softens and she leans towards him and puts a hand on his cheek. Her precious touch is worth every fear. If it really is true that she won’t be scared off, that this isn’t another game, then he would endure any manner of pain all over again if it brought him back to her, to this.

“Kiss me,” Rey says. “You don’t get to look at me like that unless you kiss me.”

His lips bend in a smile. He can’t help it. Her light is contagious. He’s been starving for this. And he knows now and forever, he won’t be able to refuse a thing she asks for as long as he lives.

Rey is doing her best not to let her heart overflow and dissolve into tears under Ben’s gaze. She doesn’t know what goes on in his head – so much between them is unspoken. But she knows enough. The way his eyelids slant over his dark almond eyes, the way his brows curve upward at the bridge of his nose…like it is she who holds the moon above them, like it is she they have to thank for this exquisite light filling the car. Words couldn’t make her feel more special than the look he is giving her right now.

Ben lifts her chin with his finger and his lips meet hers completely. The soft flesh lines up perfectly, sending a shock of pleasure and delight to both their hearts. Ben nearly loses his mind as the daintiest moan escapes Rey’s throat. Her eyelashes, so close to his, are brushed with moonlight, her hair sweeps against his cheek, and her cool fingers rest gently against his chest, curling slightly into the top of his shirt.

Rey is spellbound by his hot mouth taking her in, lapping up her kisses while he holds her chin firmer and firmer. He releases her suddenly, only to find a better grip at the back of her neck, drawing her closer to him, pushing his tongue roughly over hers. She receives him eagerly, her thin fingers reaching for the back of his neck too. He groans at her touch, the vibration of his voice entering her mouth even more deliciously than his kisses. He leans into the fingers stroking the base of his head, letting his head loll back for a moment as he’s briefly overcome with bliss, before recapturing her lips and clapping his other hand to the side of her jaw.  

Ben wonders what they’ve been thinking, not doing this constantly since the first time they kissed. What a senseless waste of time. The taste of her is wildfire in his mind. The garden-flower scent of her skin right up against his nose is dizzying, her softness could melt him to mush, yet the prevailing sensation he experiences is rather the opposite of softness…each little turn of her head or pucker of her lips stirs up a brew inside him, a blazing heat just about everywhere, a turning, growing pressure against his trousers.

His heart beat fires up in warning, giving him a split-second choice to make before it’s all going to crash and burn. He sharply shakes his head, refusing the crashing and burning option, and pulls Rey hard against him – their teeth lightly clash together and he thrusts his tongue back in her mouth, causing her eyes to widen and then droop as their mouths settle into a sensual rhythm.

Rey reaches up and holds his hand that cups her jaw. She slides her fingers and thumb down to his wrist and applies an inviting pressure to lower his reach. Ben eases back to slow intervals of chaste kisses as his attention is split to where she is taking his hand. He lets her guide him, his fingers relaxed as they brush over her, over her creamy throat, the bump of her clavicle, and down the softness of her cleavage. His heart stops as she continues to pull his wrist and then her fingers travel back up to his hand, where she takes it and slides it over her breast.

Her chest pushes into his hand as her breath hitches from the contact. Ben is forced to slide his lips to the side of her face and release a heavy breath. He leans against her cheek, panting, his eyes staring off behind her. He applies a gentle squeeze against the softness filling his palm and there’s a jerk in his pants and a nearly inaudible cry from Rey.

“Damn Rey…what are you doing to me?”

Rey grins against his cheek and exhales a tiny giggle.

“You’re too fucking good to be true.” He takes his hand away from her breast and cups the sides of her neck and stares into her eyes. “Are you even real?”

Rey laughs at that, drawing a surprised smile from Ben, who was being perfectly serious.  

“Maybe sometime soon we can do this in a more – accessible position,” says Rey, eyeing the console between them with distaste.

Ben nods, hoping the heat he feels on his face is from the exertion of their actions and not a goddamned blush.

A thick cloud passes over the moon and they’re suddenly drenched in darkness, hardly visible to one another, the only source of light now from the glowing city beneath them.

“I should get you home,” says Ben, watching signs of sleepiness drift over Rey’s face.

Rey groans. She kisses the top of his hand and cuddles it to her face. “I suppose,” she says.

Ben manages to start the car and pull away from their spot without taking his hand back from Rey. It takes thirty minutes to drive home and Rey is fast asleep against her window by the first ten. When they come to a stop in Leia’s driveway, Ben doesn’t have the heart to wake her. He remembers Leia always keeps the front door locked at night but the back door open.

He opens the passenger door and puts his arms under Rey’s curled up body and carries her around back. Hoping no one is waiting up for her, he carefully opens the back door and takes her to her room.

It’s the first time he’s been in here in years. His old bedroom – made much more tranquil by Rey’s presence in the last few months. He notices his mother didn’t keep anything from his childhood in here. It’s a good and proper guest room.

He brings Rey to her bed and draws back her blankets with one hand, situating her between them with ease. She moans contentedly as he kisses her forehead.

As he starts pulls away, Rey grasps onto his shirt with a weak fist.   

“I’m not staying,” Ben says. “I am not going to be in this room with you when my uncle comes to say good morning.”

Rey shakes her head, stubbornly, her eyes still closed. “Stay…”

“No,” he replies, placing a finger over her lips. “Not here. Not ever here.”

Rey pouts and cracks open her eyes. She smiles at his achingly handsome face. “Okay…”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ben says, pulling his shirt away from her fingers finally. “You promised me a frozen yogurt.”

“Hm,” Rey chuckles, sleepily. “Goodnight, Ben.”

“Goodnight.”

He steps toward the door.

“Ben, wait…”

“What?”

“I have something for you.” Rey gestures toward her armoire desk across the room, as though holding her hand out will call over the item she’s reaching for.

“What is it?” Ben says, trying to follow the direction of her reach, looking over the desk.

“There…hanging off the lamp switch.”

Ben swallows his breath as he finds his wrist mala dangling there, good as new.

“I got a heavier duty cord for it,” Rey says weakly, dozing off even as she speaks. “All better now…”

Ben secures it around his wrist once more and returns to her bed to kiss her lips, already soft with sleep. She grins faintly. Ben rises to leave again.

“Ben?”

He stops in front of the door and sighs.

“What?”

“I’m glad you’re back. It’s not the same without you.”

He remains in the doorway a while, looking back at her with a soft expression that Rey can’t see because she has drifted to sleep. At long last, Ben finally wrenches himself away and returns to his own place across the garden.


	14. Girlfriend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice fluffy chapter before I bombard you with angst :)

Ben knocks for the fifth time on the front door of the manor. He has tried the back door twice and the front door three times. He knows Leia is home, all three of her cars are parked in the driveway. With a groan of frustration, he takes out his phone and calls her.

The first two times he calls it goes to voicemail. The third time it only half rings before –

“What.”

“Enough with these games, open the fucking door.”

“Oh, were you trying to reach me?”

Ben’s blood boils at Leia’s curt sarcasm and he nearly throws his phone through the wall when she hangs up. But a moment later he hears the deadbolt slide over and the front door cracks open.

“Come on in,” Leia says pleasantly from inside, walking away as she speaks.

Coming in wasn’t exactly what Ben had in mind. He slips inside awkwardly, feeling foreign and misplaced in this old house.  

“Look,” he says, trailing Leia to the kitchen where she begins preparing him a glass of iced tea. “I didn’t miss our lunch on purpose. I was away.”

Leia’s eyebrows are raised, and her lips are tight as she sets down the glass a little harder than necessary in front of him and turns back around to cut him a slice of pound cake.

“Are you listening?” says Ben, determined not to raise his voice. “I’m sorry.”

Leia slides the small plate toward him and opens the fridge and begins spooning him out a serving of fruit salad.

“Mom.”

Leia spins around, her doe-brown eyes blazing, the bridge of her nose scrunched up in ire.

“I’ve had it, Ben. I’m done. That’s it. I give up.”

An unwanted lump rises to his throat at her stiff words.

“Don’t…don’t say that.”

Leia huffs and begins washing her breakfast dishes from earlier. Ben comes around the island and stands at her side, facing her. Her head is hardly above his hip.

“I knocked and you weren’t there.” Leia scrubs vigorously at a clean plate. “Big surprise.”

“I told you,” he says. “I was away. I didn’t mean to blow you off. I came here hoping I could make it up to you.”

Leia drops the plate in the dish water and snags the towel off the oven. She plants herself in front of him and looks up, drying her hands.

“You were away.” She repeats.

“ _Yes_ ,” Ben says firmly, like that’s a perfectly reasonable excuse.

Leia scoffs and gawks at him, for once at a loss for words.

“And I’m back now,” he adds. “I’m back for good. Okay? So can we just get on with this talk or whatever you – ”

“Sit down,” Leia snaps, pointing at the dining room table.

Ben obeys without much thought of doing otherwise, a little taken aback.

Leia pulls a chair back and seats herself across from him.

“There’s not going to be another chance,” she says.

“Okay.”          

“This is it. One more – disappearance – and it’s over.”

“Fine.”

“You need to answer when I call you. Or call back in a reasonable timeframe.”

“Alright.”

“Lunch every Sunday, unless we arrange to cancel beforehand.”

“Okay.”

“And you’ll participate in our conversations. No sitting there dumb like I’m dining with a brick wall.”

“Yeah sure. Whatever you want.”

“You’ll let me pay for aviation school.”

“…No.”

“Ben – ”

“ _No._ ”

Leia stares at him for a few seconds and then shrugs. “Well, it was worth a shot.” She stands back up and goes back to the counter. She is smirking now, and Ben does his best to hide his relief.

“Very well then,” she says. “I’ll expect you at the picnic table in the garden on Sunday.”

Ben stands up, hurriedly, eager to get out of that house.

“Ben,” says Leia.

He turns back around.

“Don’t mess this up again.”

Ben chews on his lip and struggles between sadness and anger. Somehow, he wins out over both and simply nods. Leia nods in return and watches him storm out the backdoor.    

Leia props her elbows on the counter and buries her face in her hands, drawing her fingers down and stopping over her lips, hiding an enormous grin she can’t restrain. Her shoulders shake with a silent laugh that bursts past her defenses. She eyes her son skulking through the garden and disappearing into her guest house.

A shriek of laughter breaks free and she covers her mouth with her hands again. She bites the insides of her lips and begins dragging a rag over her countertops. Another set of chuckles bubble up and she bends over the counter, rag hanging between her hands, and succumbs to them at last.

             

Two weeks pass and Rey is setting up the garden table for a midafternoon snack for herself and Leia. The end of August is near, and Rey wants to enjoy every moment of outdoor time that’s left. A lovely breeze stirs up all the smells of the garden. The cyan sky is cloudless. The lawnmower hums as Ben takes it in rows throughout the property. Rey feels particularly blissful today.

“Darling, this is lovely,” says Leia, taking her seat and adjusting her parasol. “Where is Luke? A treat like this should be shared.”

“He’s hosting a weekend retreat,” Rey says, pouring Leia and herself some lemonade.

“That’s right. When does he – uh oh, heads up, Rey – ”

“Huh?”

Rey screams as someone suddenly covers her eyes from behind. Reflexively, she grabs the arm over her shoulder and twists it back.

“Ow ow ow, okay you got me!”

“Poe, what on earth?”

Poe laughs, rolling his sore shoulder, and takes a seat next to Rey.

Leia tuts disapprovingly. “Just because I allowed you over for dinner one time does not mean you have a free-standing invitation to sneak onto my property any time you like.”

Poe leans over and kisses Leia’s cheek, which she accepts with an obvious eye roll.

“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d say hi.” He looks at the treats on the table and rubs his hands together. “What’re we having?”

“Apple cobbler,” says Rey. “Leia and I made it together last night.”

“Great!” Poe reaches for a piece and places it on a napkin and uses Rey’s fork to eat it.

Leia scowls and Rey laughs.

Poe nudges Rey’s side with his elbow. With his mouth full of cobbler, he asks, “Who’s that over there?”

He nods towards Ben who is returning the lawn mower to the shed.

“Did I ever mention I had a son?” says Leia.

Poe thumps his palm on the table, turns to her wide-eyed and swallows his bite thickly. “No, you certainly did not!”

“Ben!” Rey stands up from the table and jogs toward him.

Ben turns around, his expression brightening as he sees her, and then darkening when he sees there is company. Rey slips her hand in his and encourages him toward the patio table. Ben reluctantly follows her.

“This is my friend, Poe, I’ve been telling you about,” Rey says. “And Poe, this is Ben. My boyfriend.”

Leia chokes on her lemonade while Poe jumps to his feet and extends a hand for Ben to shake.

“Nice to meet you,” says Ben, tersely. “Forgive me, I’m dirty from yard work.”

He rubs the hand Rey isn’t holding on his pant leg. Poe shrugs and takes his hand back.

“The pleasure’s all mine!” Poe says. “I thought Rey was making you up that first night to dissuade me or something.”

Poe laughs and Rey smiles, leaning happily against Ben’s arm.

“Won’t you join us?” Poe gestures to the table.

Ben forces a polite smile. “Thank you, another time maybe.” Then he turns to Leia. “Mother.”

She nods back, looking perplexed.

Ben turns around and, bending towards Rey, growls, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“I’ll come by in a little while,” says Rey, avoiding eye contact with him, knowing she’s in trouble.

Ben returns to the guest house, shutting the front door behind him as quietly as possible. Leia stares at Rey as she returns to the table. Poe continues munching on cobbler, gabbing on about something, Rey isn’t sure what, she’s too busy blushing under Leia’s surveillance.

Finally, Poe says, “Well, I better be off, I suppose. Are we still on for the movie tomorrow, Rey?”

Rey smiles. “You know it.”

“Great! Have a nice day, you two! And tell your boyfriend we should all get together for drinks sometime!”

He kisses Rey on the cheek, waves to Leia, and retreats through the backyard gate. Rey hears his car start and drive away. Leia shakes her head, scowling, though her eyes are kind.

“That boy reminds me a little of my husband when he was younger,” she says.

Rey laughs. “No kidding?”

“They both drive me crazy.”

“I can’t seem to get rid of him. But I know if I ever do, I’ll probably miss him.”

“Exactly like Han, then,” says Leia.

There’s a moment of silence between them and Rey starts to return their plates to the tray. Rey is very aware Leia is looking at her. She tries to stop smiling so hard – it’s embarrassing and her cheeks are starting to hurt.

“Rey,” says Leia.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been keeping secrets from us.”

Rey leans back in her chair and pulls her hair into a ponytail. “No secrets, auntie.”

Leia looks back at the guest house, at the closed door and the still curtains in the front window. She is quiet for a while.

“Is everything okay?” Rey asks.

Leia turns back to her, her eyes a little misty.

“Of course, darling. Of course.”           

Rey is confused by this change in mood. Leia clears her throat.

“Is he – good to you?” Leia asks quietly.

Rey’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Oh – yes, he’s very good to me.”

Leia forces a smile that slowly begins to fade again. She mutters, “I can’t believe I just saw my son holding hands with someone.”

Rey doesn’t see why this would be a bad thing, but Leia seems lost in thought.

“What are you thinking, Leia?”

“Oh, nothing, dear.” Leia smiles again. “It’s unexpected, is all.”

Rey continues to watch her, waiting for her to speak next.

“Rey?” says Leia.

“Yeah?”

“Is he…very happy?”

“Sometimes,” Rey says encouragingly.

Leia nods, her expression sad. “Be careful, darling.”

Rey sighs. She tries not to sound impatient. “He won’t hurt me.”

Leia looks her dead in the eyes. “I mean be careful with _him_.”

Rey sits up straighter in her chair.

“If I hadn’t just seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it,” says Leia. “I don’t know how well you know him, how well anyone could know him, but I never imagined this would be possible. Please…take good care of him.”

Rey feels the tenderest affection well up for this woman. It fills her heart to hear someone concerned about Ben for a change.

She takes Leia’s hand. “I would never hurt him either, Leia.”

“Of course.” Leia squeezes her hand. “I know that.”

“I care about him very much.”

Leia looks close to tears. She sniffs and looks down to the table. Rey can tell Leia has this mastered, born of pride and necessity; she won’t shed any more tears for him. It’s an old vow she made long ago.

“Well,” says Leia, moving to stand and pick up the serving tray, “you’d better go to him. No doubt he will have words for you for embarrassing him like that in front of his mother.”

Rey grins and stands to give her a hug.

“I’m so happy, auntie,” she whispers over Leia’s shoulder.

“I can see that,” says Leia, holding her hands over Rey’s cheeks. “It’s all I want in the world. For you and for Ben.”

They part ways and Rey returns to the guest house where she finds Ben exactly where she expected him to be: standing in the hall, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, giving her a stony glare.

Rey grins so sweetly at him that his resolve visibly falters. He chews his lip, trying to maintain his scowl.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was supposed to keep us a secret,” Rey teases.

Ben keeps his arms folded even though she stands right in front of him.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” he grumbles. “It didn’t occur to me you would want to tell anyone.”

Rey scoffs. “It’s too late in the day for your nonsense.”

Ben raises his eyebrows. Rey giggles.

“Your friend is a bit familiar with you,” Ben says, changing the subject.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Rey says devilishly.

“Do you like that?” Ben suddenly has a much easier time maintaining his scowl. “Do you like having someone who touches you so freely? Gives away affection like chocolates…?”

“Mmm chocolates,” Rey says, taking a step toward him.

Ben looks like he doesn’t quite know where to go from here, knowing he is fast losing whatever this flirty battle has turned into.

“I’ll never be that way,” he says. “You must know that.”

Rey leans up on her tip toes and reaches her arms up and around his neck. His arms are still folded but he is fighting a smirk.

Rey says, “The day you stop being exactly who you are is the day you’ll no longer have a girlfriend.”

His eyes darken, his gaze is fixed to her lips, and he sets his jaw.

“Girlfriend…” he repeats, unfolding his arms at last and holding her at her hips.

Rey plants a chaste kiss on his lips. She pulls back and bites the bottom of her smile, her eyes crinkling with affection.

“Come on,” she says. “You promised me a walk.”

Ben lets Rey drive his car to the nearest park. It’s for residents only, nestled in the woods away from everything. They walk the path, hand and hand, as chipmunks dash back and forth in front of them.

Rey selects an enormous elm tree to sit under and drops next to a great root that rises up so high it supports her back as she settles in to work on a sketch. Ben sits across from her against another root and takes out a book.

Rey finds she can’t concentrate on the new Kenobi Studios logo she’s been working on. She keeps looking at Ben over the top of her sketchbook, noticing how handsome he is when he’s concentrating on something. His hair brushes over his face as the wind wisps by. Rey reaches her bare foot over to his and pushes it. He holds the same expression as before, but his head shakes from side to side ever so slightly.

Rey bites her lip and pushes his foot again. Ben puts his book down and looks at her expectantly, as though politely waiting to see what she wants. Rey returns to her drawing, eyebrows raised innocently.

Ben rolls his eyes, blinks, and looks back at her.

“It’s too late in the day for your nonsense,” he says.

A chuckle breaks past Rey’s nose, but she regains her composure and continues looking at her sketch with a straight face.

Ben cracks a smile and waits until she can’t keep it in anymore. She laughs out loud and throws her pencil at him. She places her book over the root and grins from ear to ear while crawling over the grass to where Ben sits.

“What are you doing?” he says.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

She crawls up over his lap and straddles his legs, resting her hands on the sides of his hips. He looks up at her. The elm’s green leaves and branches above crown Rey’s head and torso, making her look like some kind of woodland goddess. Ben’s eyes darken again, like earlier, when she called herself his girlfriend.

Rey bends down and catches his bottom lip with her teeth. It’s an unexpectedly aggressive move on her part – Ben inhales sharply and pulls back to stare at her. She gives him a coy grin and leans back in to kiss him again.    

“What’s – gotten - into you?” he says between kisses.

“You’re yummy,” she replies.

He lurches with a quick laugh of surprise, making Rey adore him all the more. She kisses his lips over and over; she can’t get enough of them. Their softness, their fullness, they call her back like a magnet until she stops pulling away at all.

Ben can hardly participate because his smile stretches too wide. When she holds herself still against him, however, a wave of endearment hits him square in the heart. He cups the back of her neck and pulls her away from him for a moment, taking in her eager face, her lovely, innocent eyes, and promptly pulls her back to him, crushing his lips to hers. He thrusts his tongue in her mouth and she eagerly allows him access.

She tangles her fingers in his hair and pulls him even closer, their tongues brushing together deliciously. She kisses him harder, her mouth pressing on top of his over and over, like he’s something to eat. Ben receives her in equal parts surprise and excitement. Her eagerness, her forwardness…he struggles not to fall behind.

He thinks he just might be getting a handle on this incredible mood she’s in, when suddenly they hear a distant chattering of children approaching and Rey flies off of him, laying face up against the tree trunk, panting like she just collapsed after running a marathon. A large family comes into view along the path. Ben sits up and nonchalantly puts his tented book over his lap. He puts a hand to his forehead and rubs down his face, shaking with laughter.

Rey has both her hands pushed against her mouth to contain her cackles. She rolls over on her side, hiding her face between the curve of Ben’s back and the tree.

The mom of the family raises her hand in greeting as they pass by. Ben presses his lips together and raises his hand back, and then bursts out laughing, pushing Rey’s hip roughly with his hand until she rolls back over away from him.

“Stay…over there,” he says, picking his book up again and blocking her face from view. “You’re going to get us into trouble.”

When they walk back to the car later, Rey is in such a good mood she’s practically dancing back along the path.

“I can’t believe Aikido classes are almost over,” says Rey, swinging her hands at her sides. “Time has gone by so fast since I came here.”

Ben doesn’t say anything. He ignores her bright personality, staring ahead at the path instead, but with a sparkle in his eye.

“Are you ready for school to start?” Rey asks him.

He shrugs.

“I can’t wait for you to be a pilot,” Rey says. “If you thought that was bad before, imagine how I’m going to kiss you when you’re in that uniform.”

Ben chokes on his own breath and turns to stare at her, but Rey trots merrily along, humming as they approach the last bend before the parking lot.


	15. Rides

It is a soft, cloudless evening when Rose calls Rey for the first time in ages, asking her to meet her at the fair.

“Rose, what – ?”

“Just meet me here, Rey. It’s the last night before it closes for the season and Finn stood me up. I’ve gone every year since I was six years old. Just come, okay?”

Rey arrives to the crowded beach as most of the visitors are pooling back into their cars. The majority of those remaining are in high school and many of the food stands are starting to close up. Rose is waiting for her by the Tilt O Whirl, holding no tickets and showing no signs of wanting to ride anything.

“Hi, Rose,” says Rey, giving her a sideways hug that Rose doesn’t seem keen on receiving. She’s in a foul mood.

They begin to walk together along the quiet dirt path, distant screams in the high above distance, popcorn cups and cotton candy cones littered everywhere. Rose links arms with Rey and walks slowly, looking down at the ground.

“How much do you know?” says Rose.

Rey glances at her and says, “Nothing. I haven’t seen or heard from you or Finn since that gala…”

“Poe hasn’t said anything?”

“He talks about everything on the planet exept Finn. Why?”

Rose scowls. “Finn’s been avoiding me.”

She looks at the Ferris Wheel sadly as they pass it by. “We were on that ride when he asked me to be his girlfriend three years ago.”

Rey bites her lip and glances at her awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Rose. Are you sure it’s not just a misunderstanding? You haven't had a fight or anything, have you?”

Rose shakes her head.

“So if nothing’s changed – ”

“Something has changed,” Rose says. “Poe.”

“What do you mean?”

Rose takes a seat on a bench at the edge of the coast, the lights of the fair behind them.

“Detective Dameron was the cop who helped Finn get out of the First Order.”

“What?!”

Rose looks a little forlorn about it, like it’s a dirty secret she hadn’t wanted to share. “It was right after I became Leia’s assistant, a little over three years ago. Leia was head coordinator of a First Order infiltration program. Poe was undercover and met Finn on the job. He actually got caught toward the end of the assignment. Finn busted him out. They escaped together.”

Rey feels shockwaves from this news. “So…what does that have to do with you and Finn?”

Rose sighs. “They were close. After all that happened. I could tell.”

Rey watches Rose’s lovely black eyes staring down at the dark sand.

“I don’t know what happened,” Rose continues. “At some point Poe just disappeared and that’s when Finn and I started to get to know each other. I didn’t think much of it at the time. In fact, it’s only been recently that I’ve remembered…”

Rose’s eyes dart up to Rey and she has a determined look on her face. “Finn and I were fast friends and we never looked back. But I’m not stupid. Those boys were in love with each other.”

Rey is quiet a moment, taking this in. Rose keeps staring at her for a reaction, or a solution, or anything but silence. When it becomes clear Rey doesn’t have the magic wand Rose was hoping for, tears begin to sparkle in her eyes.

Rey clears her throat and asks, “Do you think something’s going on between them now?”

“I have no idea,” says Rose. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Rose,” says Rey in a hush. “I think I see Finn.”

They look over their shoulders toward the house of mirrors, where someone is standing in the shadows. Finn steps out onto the sand and approaches the girls with his hands in his pockets.

He offers Rey a poor attempt at a smile and turns to Rose, looking tired.

“I’m very sorry I missed out date,” he says. “I lost track of time.”

Rose simply stares at him, her expression unreadable.         

“Can – can I talk to you a minute?”

Rey jumps to her feet and backs away. Rose gives her a pleading look, but Rey motions toward the fair, mouthing ‘I’ll be right over there.’

Rey strolls back up the boardwalk to the center game strip. She keeps looking over her shoulder as she goes, watching her friends walk along the beach toward the water. She buys herself a funnel cake and watches a kid try to shoot a balloon with a pellet gun.

She sighs and takes out her phone and texts Ben, “Hi. What are you up to?”

A minute passes before he replies, “Fixing a railing.”

Rey leans back on her plastic chair and looks at the rides above her. She sends him, “Have you ever been on a Ferris Wheel?”

He replies, “You must be at the fair.”

“Yeah.”

Rey’s heart skips and then flutters when his next text comes in. “I would have taken you, if you had asked.”

Rey suddenly feels like a silly teenager. Not unlike the ones lined up to ride the giant slow-spinning wheel, hanging on their boyfriends like monkeys.

She answers, “I can’t picture you enjoying a single thing about this.”

“That’s because you’re looking at the wrong ride. Look in the sky for the one with all the spinning cages.”

Rey scans to her right where a swarm of screams doppler past. A crooked sign on the ground reads THE ZIPPER.  

She giggles. “I’d probably throw up everywhere.”

He replies, “No, you’re tough.”

Rey leans back again, sighs again, and polishes off her funnel cake. She feels a nudge of guilt at being so happy right now, texting cute things to her boyfriend while the silhouettes of her friends stand at least two feet apart from each other on the beach.   

The shorter shadow, Rose, starts to walk away and heads for the boardwalk. Rey hurries upward and goes to meet her halfway. When they meet, Rose has streaks of tears down her cheeks.

“Are you okay?” Rey asks, enveloping her in a hug.

“We broke up,” says Rose in a tiny voice.

“Oh…I’m so sorry. What happened?”

Rose lets out a breath and smooths over the front of her jacket. She sniffs and squares her jaw. “Not a lot, really. He apologized for being weird lately and said he needed some time. I said things are over between us, aren’t they?”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing at first. And then he…started crying…and said he isn’t being fair to me. I asked if it’s someone else and he said he doesn’t know. Then we were just quiet for a while, I didn’t know what to say. So finally I just said it’s okay. And he said I deserve a much better boyfriend than him. I said maybe I deserve a better boyfriend, but I could never ask for a better friend.”

“Rose, that’s really nice…”

She shrugs. “It’s true. And then it got quiet again…so I left.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says again. “Can I do anything to help?”

Rose lets out another great sigh. “It just sucks. I do want him to be happy. I’ll be okay. It’s only three years of my life gone to shit, no big deal.”

“Rose…”

“Really, I’ll be fine. I just need some time by myself I think.”

“Okay,” Rey says, hugging her again. “Please call me if you need to talk or anything. Please.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rose says vacantly. She gives her a half-smile goodbye and turns to leave. Then she stops after two paces.

“Actually,” she says, “can you go talk to him?”

Rey looks over to the beach where Finn is still standing alone.

“I know him better than anyone,” says Rose. “He’s not okay. He shouldn’t be alone right now. He has never been one that does very well alone. He’s always been very open. It’s…something I always loved about him.”

Rey holds back the urge to say, “Wonder what that’s like.” Instead she smiles understandingly and says, “Of course I will.”

Rose nods and returns to the boardwalk, heading for the parking lot.

Rey watches Finn standing there in the dark, facing the water. She steps out on the sand and walks toward him. Finn hears her coming and looks over his shoulder to see who it is. As soon as he recognizes her, he walks purposefully over and covers her in a tight hug.

Rey hugs him back, resting her head against his shoulder. She says, “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”

He shakes his head against her hair.

“What’s going on, Finn?”

He releases her and steps back, looking at the sand.

“I didn’t want to hurt her,” he says.

He doesn’t say anything else. It’s unusual, disturbing, seeing his usual cheerful face defeated and lost. Rey holds out her hand and says, “Let’s take a walk.”

He takes her hand and holds it firmly as they walk. Rey is vaguely aware of how different it feels to have someone hold her hand like this with ease and accept her support without hesitation.

“What’s bothering you?” Rey asks.

Finn answers instantly, like he’s been itching to tell her this all along. “You know how I told you when I got out of the Order, I met some good people who helped me?”

“Yeah, Rose told me Poe was one of those people.”

Finn looks at her for a second and then continues watching their feet as they saunter the coast. “Poe and I…We met when I was still working for Snoke. He showed up on some deal I was involved in posing as some third-party contact, some bullshit act, whatever it was. We…it was a whirlwind, we…”

“Finn, breathe…”                                                         

He looks down, embarrassed. “I’ve never talked about him before.”

“Go on…” She squeezes his hand.

“I’m not going to be able to recall this correctly, it was a mess of events, I don’t know what order it happened in and it was all a lie anyway. But there was a connection from the start. Between us. Ugh…this is stupid, Rey.”

“Please tell me...”

“Alright, I don’t know, it just was. Whatever you want to call it, it just was. We fell hard and fast and after a few weeks, after a lot of – well, nights together, he offered to help me. I wasn’t dumb enough to tell him I wanted out, but he knew. He said he could help, and I would be protected.

“I didn’t agree to anything, but it didn’t matter because the next day the Order found him out. I’m not sure what happened – rumors always circled back to Snoke and he ordered him to be detained for questioning. I was able to sneak in and release him. And he made me come with him, he took my hand and wouldn’t let go.

“As soon as we were to safety, everything changed. Apparently, he had a team. Apparently, he was a cop, undercover, and he never told me. Never, even when it was all over, he didn’t admit it. He didn’t explain himself. It was just protection programs this, safehouses that. Networking, introductions to social workers, politicians. This wasn’t their first rodeo. And we were never alone together after that. Back to business.

“He was the one who introduced me to Leia, and she’s the one who employed me mere weeks later. Poe worked with us until he didn’t. He got transferred out of Leia’s department and I never saw him again until the other week when you brought him to that stupid art show.”

Rey stares at him, baffled.

“That was over three years ago. And seeing him again, I just – I asked myself a hundred times if what we had before was some kind of trauma bonding on my part or something – you know. Not real. But I had never felt that way before about anyone and…haven’t since.

“He made it clear it’s not the same for him. And it’s alright…but seeing him again made me realize I can’t keep pretending with Rose. I’ve got to find a way to get over him before I have a relationship with anyone. Maybe if I had some closure or something. But I’m not going to drag Rose around while I figure that out.”

“Have you talked to Poe since the art gala?”

“No, I haven’t. Not like I have his number or anything.”

“Well, I can solve that problem right here right now if you want.”

Finn’s face is blank. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. A whole minute passes before he responds to her.

“It seems…” He hesitates. “…inappropriate to do that. Inconsiderate.”

Rey isn’t sure if he means inconsiderate to Rose or to Poe. Regardless, she nods.

“Okay.”

           

After the night at the fair, Rey doesn’t hear from Finn or Rose for the rest of the week. In an uncharacteristic moment of selfishness, Rey feels a little sad that they aren’t remembering it is her last day of work. A month ago they were talking about going out to celebrate the start of her vacation. It hadn’t made much sense to Rey, but they always enjoyed an excuse to party, and now that they are preoccupied, Rey feels a little disappointed.

She enters Kenobi Studios for her last day of teaching with a drag in her step. She’s going to miss her students and the consistency of her practice. When she goes to leave at the end of the day, she feels downright melancholy. At least, she reminds herself, Master Kenobi wants to continue practicing together until the fall classes start.

“Miss Skyla, will you come here a moment,” Jacen calls from his office as Rey turns the doorknob.

“Sure thing.” Rey comes inside and slouches in the chair by the door.

“I had some issues with paperwork,” says Jacen, holding up a pile of disordered files. “I’m afraid I’m terrible at this sort of stuff. I realized there was an inconsistency on the tax forms I’ve been filing for you. I apologize if I already asked you about it earlier and forgot.”

“What is it?”

“Well, for this form here – ” Jacen holds up a slightly crinkled paper. “It was returned saying Rey Skyla doesn’t match government records. After a rather painful phone call, I was advised to double check you don’t have a middle name or something, or maybe there is a misspelling on your ID?”

Immediately, Rey says, “Ohh,” and stands up to inspect the form in his hands. “I can fill them out again with a different name. The paperwork got a little screwy when I was twelve. A family friend became my legal guardian and I was offered the choice to keep my old name or take his name. I decided to blend the two and make a new one. Lila and Skywalker – so Skyla. It probably didn’t transfer properly, so I can fill it out as Lila.”

Rey reaches for a pen off his desk. “Do you have a new form for me?”

But Jacen is standing dumbfounded beside her, still holding the document out in front of him. Rey glances up and sees all the blood has been drained from his face. She straightens back up and stares at him, concerned.

“Master Kenobi, are you alright?”

“Did – ” He clears his throat and tries again. “Did you say Skywalker?”

Rey blinks at him. “Yes…Luke Skywalker was my guardian.”

“And…your mother?”

Rey tilts her head and regards him oddly, wondering why he’s looking at her like that. “Her name was Catherine Lila.”

“Was?”

“She died a little over ten years ago.”

Jacen drops his palm to the desk to steady himself and knocks over his mug of coffee. His face is stricken. He doesn’t even seem to be aware or bothered by the fact that there is now coffee pouring over the rest of his documents.

Rey has never seen him as anything but graceful and collected. She watches him with wide eyes as it looks like he’s about to be sick.

“Jacen…is everything – ?”

“You can go now, Miss Skyla,” he says tersely.

Rey takes a step back, incredibly confused. “Did you want me to fill out a new form?”

“What? No, it – doesn’t matter. Go ahead and go.”

“Okay…” She edges toward the office door. “Are we still on for our session on Monday?”

Jacen meets her eyes and stares at her for several seconds before comprehending what she had said.

“Oh, no…no, I’m afraid that isn’t going to work out for me. I’ll call you…when classes start in September. Good evening.”

He turns around and leans over his coffee covered desk, staring at the form in his hand. Rey backs out and slips out the front door without another word.

She spends the entire bus ride home wondering what it is she possibly could have done wrong. She traces over every detail of their conversation until by the time she gets home, she isn’t sure what was actually said and which parts she invented to make sense of it. It seems to her that Jacen knows Luke somehow, that’s when the conversation took a turn. But why that means she’s no longer welcome to practice with him, she has no idea.

Rey stops by the manor, thinking she might bring the matter up with Luke, but it appears he and Leia are out. Instead, she changes clothes and goes over to the guest house.

Rey finds Ben in the backyard stacking a several logs of firewood. The big smile he greets her with is almost enough to make her forget about everything else.

“Hi,” she says, receiving his embrace, feeling like a little twig amongst all his bulk.

“You’re finally free,” he says, tapping the tip of her nose affectionately.

“Do you have company?” Rey asks, noticing two mugs of mostly empty tea on the patio table.

Ben shakes his head with a slight scowl. “No, my mother was over earlier.”

“How did it go?”

Rey realizes after she asks that he might not want to talk about it, since it’s always been a nonverbal agreement that all topics involving both Leia and Luke are off-limits.

But Ben shrugs with a fairly light air and takes her hand to lead her down the steps.

“I thought if you didn’t have plans, we could celebrate the start of your vacation with a fire,” Ben says, gesturing to the wood and firepit.

Rey can’t help but grin.

“You’re so sweet. You bought makings for s’mores and everything.”

Rey hasn’t seen Ben smile this much in a while. He goes over to the grill Rey hadn’t noticed and opens it to check on a pair of steaks.

“Ben…” Rey says. “You’re the absolute best…”

He glares at her for being sentimental and follows it with a grin.

“Get yourself a drink if you want one,” he says, turning the steaks. “The cooler is right there.”

Rey has such a wonderful evening with him that her strange altercation with Jacen is pushed from her mind until the very end. The last light of the sun is extinguished and the bright, dancing flames illuminate the lawn around them. They sit contentedly together in silence, listening to the crackle of the fire.

Finally, the nagging, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of Rey’s stomach becomes too loud to ignore.

“Ben,” Rey says, cradling her head in the crook of her arm.

He looks at her, the fire glowing in his dark eyes.

“Thank you so much for tonight. I’d been having a bad day.”

Ben suddenly looks concerned and he reaches down to her leg that’s draped over his and caresses the top of it.  

“What happened?” he asks.

Rey runs her finger over the mala beads over Ben’s wrist, her lips pouted as she tries to figure out how to put words to it. Every time she starts to speak the whole thing sounds stupid and insignificant.

Finally, she says simply. “My master doesn’t want to train me anymore.”

Ben scoffs. “That can’t be true.”

Rey feels a lump in her throat and wonders vaguely why this matters so much to her.

“It is. He said so.”

“He said he doesn’t want to train with you?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Why?”

Rey pouts again, her damaged feelings making her feel like a child. “I don’t know.”

Ben sits up in his chair and motions for her to come over to him. She stands up and sits on his lap, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Maybe it’ll be good to have a break,” he says. “You’ve been under stress lately, not to mention your whole life’s done a 180 and you’ve been going constantly ever since.”

Rey nods, breathing in his amazing scent mixed with firewood. “I guess.”

“Will it cheer you up if I tell you I’ve planned a date for us?”

Rey sits up to look at him, wondering if he’s serious. “A date?”

“Yes,” he says with a smirk. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”

Rey gawks at him until she can’t help but let out a laugh of excitement. “Really?”

Ben kisses her cheek, which melts her heart.

Rey hugs up against his chest, squeezing her eyes shut, wondering what she did to deserve him.

“Be ready at 5:00 tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the car.”


	16. The Date

Ben is holding his car door open for Rey when she comes out the front door of the manor, wearing the most stunning silver dress Ben has ever seen. For some reason, Rey is feeling a little shy tonight. They’ve had countless outings together, yet something about a formal date seems so new and proper and…important. It might be because she has never been on a real date before. It might be because of this ridiculous dress she would never wear otherwise. It might be because Ben is wearing a dark blue dress shirt unbuttoned down to the curves of his pecs, sleek black pants, and his hair is tied back behind his neck.

Rey wills her hand to stop shaking before she stops in front of him and takes his outstretched hand. He kisses it and steps closer to her, stroking the side of her cheek with one finger. A nervous laugh gets caught in his throat and Rey suddenly feels loads better. They can put on all the nice clothes in the world and play grown up and normal for as long as they can manage it…but they are still Ben and Rey.

“So where are we going?” Rey asks as he turns on the car.

“You’ll see.”

Rey can’t stop smiling as he drives them the long way to town, making sure to take the highway where he can go fast the way she likes. She feels lighter than air watching him laugh at her jokes and sneak affectionate looks at her with warm, unburdened eyes. He is so handsome and manly tonight. He smells amazing. She just wants him to pull over and kiss her until the sun goes down. She considers suggesting this before he pulls off the highway and heads towards a lush, green park, great banners every fifty feet along the road advertising a music festival.

“What is this?” Rey asks.

“Our date.”

She turns to him to see if he’s joking. He continues to look ahead at the road, but his lips are battling a smirk.

“No…” says Rey, trying to peak around the trees toward the outdoor stage.

Ben parks on the street and opens the car door for her. He’s a bit surprised when Rey jumps out and throws her arms around him rather than taking his hand.

“You planned this for me?” Rey says against his shoulder.

Ben is embarrassed now and keeps trying to pull away so they can walk, but she continues to squeeze him.

“Come on, Rey,” he says. “I’m starving.”

She giggles and allows him to lead them toward the buffet tables. Her heart dances when he puts an arm around her shoulders as they walk. They have their picnic on the lawn in front of the sizeable orchestra as it begins to warm up. When the concert begins, Rey leans contentedly against Ben’s chest, drinking in the plumb and flame colored sunset behind the thick trees ahead, the gentle music soaring through the air.

When the sun sets, Rey assumes the concert will be over, but then something remarkable happens. A black-robed choir comes out on stage in front of the musicians and begin releasing floating lanterns into the sky. Rey gasps and clutches Ben’s arm, holding her breath as the lanterns float with the music.

Ben kisses the top of her head, looking down at her rather than at the floating lanterns. He watches their reflection in her eyes, believing them to be far more beautiful there than in the sky.

Rey smiles at him as the final pure tone rings out into the night. The audience’s loud applause resounds around them and everyone begins to stand and vacate the park. Ben and Rey walk hand in hand with the flow of the crowd, chatting about maybe finding a place to have cheesecake.

As they turn the corner, paying more attention to each other than where they are going, they nearly run into another pair walking the opposite direction.

The four of them stop dead in their tracks. Rey has to do a double take. She almost doesn’t recognize her. Phasma.

It’s been over three months since Hux’s funeral, the last time Rey saw her. She’s with a girlfriend, dressed up nice, a red clubbing dress, a golden clutch, and wearing the first smile Rey has ever seen on her face. The smile lingers at first as she looks at Ben and Rey…and then Rey can see in her eyes the precise moment she realizes who is in front of her. Rey can’t see Ben’s reaction, but she feels his body stiffen at her side.

“Come on, Phas, let’s go,” says Phasma’s friend, looking concerned.

Phasma is rooted to the concrete, glaring at Ben now as though all her surroundings have dissolved away. Ben doesn’t move either.  

Phasma’s lips are so thin they nearly disappear. Her eyes flit from Ben to Rey, noticing Rey's arm curled around his, noticing how close they stand together.

It’s like a tea kettle boiling over. A rising heat visibly overcomes Phasma’s otherwise pale face until something inside her snaps.

She doesn’t yell, she must have some understanding that she is still in public, but her elevated whisper spits out like venom.

“You fucking bastard…”

“Phasma,” her friend tries to pull her arm, but Phasma yanks it away.

“What are you doing to that girl?” Phasma nods toward Rey. “What the _fuck_ are you thinking?”

Rey flinches as she addresses her. She grips Ben’s arm tighter, afraid to look up at him. She recognizes the walls that raise around Ben. She can feel them without looking at him. It scares her. He hasn’t blocked off like this for a while now.  

Ben might have done any number of things had he been alone. But the little squeeze against his arm is enough to make him at least attempt to avoid this. He moves to lead Rey around the two women in their way.

“Don’t walk away from me, coward,” Phasma snaps at him.

“What do you want from me?” Ben stops suddenly and faces her.

“I want to tear your head off your shoulders, you piece of shit!”

A passer-by stares at them, slightly alarmed.

Ben loses his temper, as Rey knew he would. 

“You think I wanted this?” he shouts back, taking his arm away from Rey.

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted – because of you he’s _dead._ I just cremated my future, my life, my _heart_ , and here you are…on a fucking _date_!”

“You’re crossing a line.” His voice is low and menacing and Rey feels a rumbling of fear in her stomach. More passers-by are starting to look at them. Phasma is so enraged, her next retort gets tangled up in her throat, creating a pause long enough for Ben to walk away if he had chosen, if he had taken the opportunity.

Instead, a dark energy climbs up and over him, he’s somehow taller, larger, more dangerous. He takes a breath that might have been meant to steady himself, but instead he boils over and screams, “I knew him a damn sight longer than you did – you need to back the fuck off!”

If Rey wasn’t frozen in place, she would have run away as fast as she could at the look Phasma gives him now. Her friend seems to be thinking along the same lines.

Phasma steps closer to him and speaks rapidly, though quieter now: “You did not _know_ him. You hadn’t seen him in years, I know – he fucking told me. You weren’t there like I was. You weren’t there when that devil of a man killed both his parents in front of him. _Debt repaid_. That’s what that fucker said to him. Debt repaid. Do you know what he looked like when I found him in that house hours later? No, you don’t, because you weren’t fucking there. You didn’t know him. But I know who _you_ are. I know exactly who _you_ are, Kylo Ren.”

Phasma’s face scrunches up as she slaps him hard across the face. Rey jumps and gasps at the impact.

“Phasma!” Rey gasps.

Phasma acts as though Rey hadn’t spoken. She’s glaring at Ben, who looks as though he might hit her.               

“Hey,” Phasma’s friend urges. “Let’s  _go._ ”

Phasma spits on the ground in front of Ben and follows her friend without turning back.

Ben is staring ahead where Phasma was standing, remaining completely still. Rey looks over her shoulder to make sure they are still walking away and then slowly reaches up to take his arm again. He doesn’t react to her touch. She starts to take a step forward and is pleased to find that he walks with her.

A few minutes pass before Rey risks saying something to him.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Ben nods, expressionless.

They continue to walk, and Rey can feel him slipping away. She can feel him itching to get back to the car, to go home and barricade himself in the guest house. She wouldn’t mind but she has a feeling she is not included in those plans.

Rey says, “Ben, let’s take a walk.”

It takes him a few seconds to comprehend that she spoke. “What?”

“Let’s turn down here and take the Oakside path. Remember, we walked there the first day we met.”

“I don’t know,” he says absently, his voice incredibly low.

Rey holds onto his arm. “Let’s just take it easy for a while. Cool off. Just the two of us. Okay?”

Ben looks weary and confused. “If you want…”

They walk in silence for a while. Rey bites her lip hard as she holds his arm, angry and concerned tears beginning to prickle her eyes. The sound of that slap still rings in her ears. She stares ahead, hearing nothing but the river’s current and their shoes crunching over the dirt path.

Ben’s energy is intimidating, and it expands as they walk. Rey might have been frightened of him if she didn’t know him better. He’s seething from what just happened, ready to dissolve rather than burst.

Rey is sure it has nothing to do with the _pain_ of a slap to the face, but the contact at all. She doesn’t have to ask to know that Phasma had very suddenly and rudely inserted herself into a place she was not allowed. It’s taken this long for Ben to accept kind touches from someone who cares about him. A strike in anger has awoken a beast inside him. His energy is positively sinister.

But what shakes Rey to her core is she has a suspicion that this unearthly rage isn’t directed towards Phasma at all…only himself. She wonders how she can reach him now. He seems far, far away from her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rey’s voice is a clear, gentle thing in the darkness.

Ben doesn’t answer her.

Rey sighs. “I’m here for you, you know. I’m on your side.”

Still nothing.

She closes her eyes for a moment and leans against him as they slowly walk the path. Rey holds back a frustrated sob. They had been having such a lovely night together.

About ten minutes pass before Ben speaks at last. If the night wasn’t so quiet, Rey probably wouldn’t be able to hear him. His voice is low, expressionless, cold. It calls a shiver down her spine.

“Something I don’t think anyone knows,” says Ben, “is I never would have joined the First Order if I hadn’t met Hux.”

Rey looks up to his face with her cheek still on his arm. He looks tired and heavy. But he is calm. Resigned. It breaks her heart.

“Both his parents worked for Snoke. I don’t know how many people know that either. Mine didn’t. Mine didn’t know a lot of things that were right under their noses.”

Each time he pauses like that, Rey wonders if he’s going to go on or not. Her heartbeat stumbles each time he speaks again.

“Hux hated Snoke. Even when we were in grade school, when we were too young to hate anybody, he hated him. Hux had a proud father. And Snoke broke him down until he was nothing. Snoke tortured his mother in every way possible until she was a shred of a thing. They owed him a lot of money. They spent most of their lives trying to pay him back.

“I guess they could have handed over Hux, that’s what a lot of people did who were indebted to him and had a child to offer. Snoke was big on raising his own stock. Made for better brainwashed soldiers. But Hux’s didn’t give him up. He and I didn’t even know that was an option for them until after they died.”

Another pause. Rey is afraid to even breathe too loud for fear he’ll stop talking.

“They were fools. Kind, generous fools. They were never going to be out from under him. They should have known that. Hux knew and he was a kid. Hux was always the smart one. That was the only reason Phasma gave him the time of day back in the beginning.

“What I knew about the First Order is what Hux told me. And the crazy thing was they didn’t sound like criminals. Snoke was good at making things look legal. It’s why no one could ever stick him with anything. It seemed to me as long as you were on his good side, there was a lot of payoff. He didn’t fuck over the people loyal to him. He didn’t hurt anyone that didn’t owe him anything. Still, he was a faceless monster to me for many years before I met him in person. The way Hux talked, Snoke was sixty feet tall.

“The day I met him I was actually disappointed. And then pleasantly surprised. He wasn’t a monster at all. Only a man. And he was charismatic, he knew how to talk to kids. I was eleven, I think. It was an accident that we met. I didn’t realize who he was at first. Someone visiting Hux’s parents. He saw me showing Hux what my uncle was teaching me in Aikido. He knelt down and asked me to show him that again.

“Receiving a nod of approval from that hardened looking man was an incredible compliment. And then he introduced himself to me as Snoke. I was surprised and a little scared, but he was holding out a hand for me to shake, grinning without fangs or anything, not threatening, not cold, not anything like the picture Hux had painted.

“He started coming by more and more after that. Sometimes it was just to see me. That was flattering to say the least. He didn’t say I shouldn’t tell my parents about him. Just that he wouldn’t be able to come by anymore if I did. Hux hated the whole thing. We never really got along after that.

“Hux started hanging around Phasma more and more. I didn’t have any other friends. Snoke started to become a replacement for that. A mixture of a friend and a mentor. He was a busy man and he made a lot of time for me in the beginning, when I was still young. I was the biggest fool of anyone.

“By the time I was old enough to formally join the First Order I was lost to anyone who would have cared anyway. I hardly spoke to my parents, except out of necessity. Hux had already joined the Order, the prick. I always knew he would. He had his reasons. At the time it didn’t matter what they were. We hadn’t been friends for ages.

“We were both in the Order for over ten years, but I didn’t ever see him after the first day. He was always in a lower division than me and I climbed the ranks quickly.

“The kind of person I was – am still, I don’t know…I practically forgot he ever existed. I never thought about the past if I could help it. It’s a wonder he recognized me all those years later. I didn’t think there was anything left to recognize. Even my face was covered when he saw me again for the first time in a decade, back on the first of this year.

“He walked into Snoke’s idiotic party mansion, took one look at me and said, ‘Is that you, –   ’”

Rey can see his lips form the word ‘Ben’ but no sound comes out. He is silent for a long time. Rey can feel his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

“He was a fool then, too,” he continues, sadly. “All those brains fell out once he joined the Order. He pulled me aside in confidence. He hadn’t seen me since we were children. Didn’t know what kind of person I had become. Didn’t even hear me speak before spilling his plans to me. He just asked me to take off the mask is all…and told me he was getting married. Said he had thought it was too late for him, a chance at happiness, but it wasn’t. Said it’s not too late for me either.

“He had all these ideas. All of them ridiculous. All of them suicidal. He was going to leave the Order. Spit in Snoke’s eye and walk away and start a family with that mousy girl that used to hang around us as kids. He had it all sorted out and it must be fate that he ran into me. A sign, he said. He said I should come with them.

“I spent hours trying to talk him out of it. It was late in the night before I gave up and agreed to help him. If he was going to do this, he had to be smart about it. He couldn’t just pack up a bag and go. He had to be strategic. Snoke would come after him, he had to have known that. He had to. He saw what his parents went through. He told me he saw them die right in front of him…”

Ben closes his eyes for a moment. When he continues, his voice has a different texture. “Hux finally agreed because I said I’d go with him when the time came. I told him he had to be patient. He had to wait. He had to tell his fiancé she needs to wait. I would come up with a plan, but if we rushed it, we’d fuck it all up.

“He promised he would do as I say. He said he trusted me. That shit when we were kids – we were young and stupid. He didn’t blame me anymore for falling under Snoke’s spell. He understands. His parents fell for it too, in the beginning. It doesn’t matter anymore. We can get out. And he’ll do anything I say.”

Ben is looking ahead of them like Hux is standing there in front of him, back from the grave. It chills Rey that he still looks so calm. It’s only his eyes that are tormented, that carry the traces of every sleepless night of his life.

“I did plan, I swear I did. I swear I waited, listened, looked around for an opportunity. I never intended on joining him, but I always intended on helping him escape. I even had an idea of how it could be done. It just took so long – five months about. And I was close. Any day, any fucking day.”

Ben is speaking rapidly, his voice becoming a little desperate.

“To this day I don’t know why Snoke killed him. Unless he found out Hux was planning on betraying him, but I doubt it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was entirely random. If he finally got tired of using him as sport. He didn’t have his parents to torment anymore, the fun might have run out for him. I don’t know. I don’t know.

“Snoke threw another party at that fucking mansion and invited everyone. I’d never seen him do anything like that before. It’s a big risk putting everyone together like that. He probably intended on thinning out some of his ranks. Make room for new recruits. It’s something he would do. He started and ended with Hux.

“I was trying to find Hux. I knew something was off. I called his phone, texted him – things I told him we could never do unless we had to. He said he was out back – there was this old pool in the backyard that Snoke never used. I don’t know what Hux was thinking being back there in the dark alone. But I saw him from the window and I opened the door and made it as far as the end of the patio. And then Snoke stepped in front of me.

“He didn’t see me, he was preoccupied. Hux was facing the other way. Snoke marched right up to him, gun in hand, and shot him in the back of the head.”

Rey gasps and holds a hand over her mouth. She watches Ben as his energy blackens. His face is still. His beautiful eyes are empty.

Rey is surprised to find that they have both stopped walking. She wonders when that happened. How long have they been standing here in the middle of this dark trail?

Ben looks straight at her then, his eyes boring into hers. “Snoke stood there looking down at his body for all of ten seconds before I ended his life, the same way he ended Hux’s.”

Rey can’t look away. Her hand is still over her mouth and tears fill her eyes. Ben is calm. Too calm.

He backs away from her, each step a slow, difficult movement. He goes until his back hits a tree trunk, pushing his breath out in a quick huff.

Rey follows him. She stands in front of him, looking from one eye to the other, trying to find him in this horrible energy. Ben looks past her, and that worries her more than anything he just told her. There’s no light in him anywhere.

A lump rises in her throat as it hits her that these are recent events he’s recalled, from before he came home. Four short months ago. This is why Phasma hates him so much. She thinks if he hadn’t told Hux to wait, Hux would still be here.

“I’m…I’m so sorry.” Rey speaks slowly, hardly a whisper.

Ben doesn’t react. He’s looking behind her at something that isn’t there. The seconds flow with the river’s current behind him.

Ben’s face begins to tense, his lips tighten as though he’s in pain. And then, for the briefest moment, his left cheek flinches. And he finally looks directly at her.

Rey frowns, the top ends of her eyebrows aching from being pushed together for so long.

“You can still feel it, can’t you?” she says, looking at the left side of his face. “Where she hit you?”

Slowly, he nods.

Rey wets her lips and says, “Can I try something?”

He doesn’t answer, but the longing way he looks at her now is all the permission she needs. She raises her hand and brings it to his face, brushing along his cheek until her thumb knuckle is resting against the corner of his mouth. Rey watches him for a reaction, but he gives her none.

Long seconds pass before he raises his own hand and rests it on top of hers. There’s a closeness between them, Rey can feel it. It’s crept in and replaced that poisonous energy that was there only a second ago.

Four months of soft moments made this possible. Months of smiles, teases, glances, and long conversations. They’ve become comfortable in silence, in pain, in waiting, in being together. That is why they are in this place, only a heartbeat past his old life, standing together here, safe and close.

Past the butterflies, the timid kisses, the exciting dates, and runaway thoughts, they’ve built something stronger than any of that. A friendship, a place of security. And Rey feels that as solid as the tree he rests against, as real as his hand over hers, as she looks into his eyes now.

Rey says, “Does this make it feel better?”

Ben remains still, staring at her lips. Quickly, he nods once.

Rey says, “I care about you so much, Ben.”

He nods again, his lips tightening. He turns her hand and begins to press the softest kisses on her wrist.

Rey says, “What happened with your friend…it wasn’t your fault.”

Ben look back into her eyes. He looks so tired.

Rey tilts her head, looking at him seriously. “It wasn’t. Not a single piece of it.”

Ben waits a moment, as though he’s trying to decide something. Finally, he brings their hands away from his face and holds her palm against his heart while he reaches for his phone. He holds it up between them, searches for something, pushes a button, and Phasma’s haggard voice begins to blare from the speaker, intruding on the quiet, peaceful night.

“You. Piece. Of. Shit.” At first Rey thinks that is all the message says because the pause is so long. Then there’s the sound of a bottle clanking and Phasma’s disjointed breathing. “I know what you did. Ben Solo? Are you listening? I know exactly what you did. Fucking. Coward.” There’s another pause in which several bottles clank as they tip over; she seems to have tripped on them. “I. _Hate_. You. Are you listening? HE’S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!”

Rey doesn’t want to hear anymore. But Ben continues to hold the phone up. There’s still 30 seconds left of the message.

Phasma hiccups and starts wailing, “You’re a monster and a coward and you’re better off dead. Ben, are you listening? It should have been you. Oh! And by the way, asshole, your father dropped dead this morning.”

Ben watches Rey through the whole message, their faces illuminated from the glow of the screen. He watches her eyes grow as she looks at the phone in horror. He watches her raise her hand to her lips again. And he’s ready to receive her mortified gaze at the end, when it’s over. He swallows once and puts the phone back in his pocket.

“Sh-she sent that right before you came home,” Rey mutters.

Ben nods.

“It isn’t true…” she whispers, and Ben never stops watching her. He seems to be testing how far she’ll take this, how long she’ll keep her feet planted. “Ben…it wasn’t your fault!”

His silence is starting to concern her. He hasn’t said a word since told her he killed Snoke. He’s still holding her hand over his heart. She gently brushes her fingers against his chest without moving her palm.

“You’ve been holding onto that message,” Rey says, her voice quivering. “This whole time, you’ve been believing her…what she said…”

She pauses in pulsing silence.

“It isn’t _true_ …You were trying to help them. He wouldn’t have made it – he couldn’t have just left without help. Phasma _must_ know that deep down. Ben, look at me…it isn’t your fault.”

His face breaks for a moment, a quick grimace, a squint, and he immediately composes himself. He watches her lips. His heart pounds against her palm.

Her hand is now pushing against his chest, as though that will make him believe her. She bites her bottom lip. Ben notices the tears in her eyes and suddenly reaches his arm around to hold her, bringing her close to him where she can listen to his heartbeat. He holds the back of her head and leans into her hair.

He rests back against the tree and Rey steps into his space. She catches her breath. They soften into one another, connected and complete. The rustle of leaves above them is musical. Rey closes her eyes, squeezing around him gently, kissing his chest. His lips press against the top of her shoulder.

“Say something…” Rey whispers over his ear. “Tell me you believe me. Tell me you’ll delete that message. Say you know I’m right…”

The breath he draws in is harried. At last his deep voice mutters, “All that matters to me is that you believe what you’re saying is true.”

He’s kissing her shoulder now, pulling over the fabric of her dress so his lips brush her bare skin, leaving damp traces that make her shiver.

“Can we go now?” he asks, as his mouth begins to drag up her neck.

Rey nods, wide eyed and speechless, her cheek brushing his as she leans her head back to give him better access to her throat. Her heart pounds in her ears, air escapes her lungs after each new kiss, leaving her breathless…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright...there's quite a bit more to his story, but at least he's finally sharing something with her. Welcome back aboard the angst train.


	17. Goodnight

When Ben and Rey enter the guest house, hand in hand, Ben shuts the door after them and pulls her to the bedroom. Rey can’t walk as fast as him; she hurries ungracefully behind him. By the time they get to his room, Rey’s racing heart has nothing to do with her short jog down the hall.

Ben doesn’t look at her until he enters his room. He pulls her inside, shuts the door behind him, and turns to her, eyes burning, with one hand flat against the door.

Rey backs away as he walks towards her, trying not to melt into a puddle of either embarrassment or desire…she has no idea which. He has never looked at her like this before. It’s a shocking contrast from his usual uncertainty, to have him move so boldly towards her.

Ben stares at her, looking for a sign, a green light, _anything_ to invite him closer. Rey sucks on her bottom lip, trying to untangle her nerves. He looks so alluring in the darkness, only shadows of pale light brushing his forehead, nose, and chin. The small smile she offers is the cue he needed.

Ben catches her face between his hands and kisses her roughly, trying to pull her closer to him even though their lips are already pressed together. An explosion of passion bursts from Rey’s chest, manifesting in her core, and dissipating all over her body.

She can hardly breathe as he steps forward, moving her backward, and then he pushes her onto the bed – actually pushes her…the wind leaves her lungs for a moment as she falls back in surprise. She might have been nervous if she didn’t like it so much. It shocks her how much she likes it. After all this time of being so careful around each other…to have him breach these old physical constraints, and handle her purposefully, shamelessly, as though they’ve done this all along…she suddenly feels the need to press her thighs together to contain this foreign and exciting feeling.

Rey wonders if he’ll come to his senses at some point, but he presses on without hesitation. Their fingers entwined together, he presses the backs of her hands against the mattress and continues to devour her, his tongue the perfect wetness, hotness, taking her mouth, making it his. She gulps as his stubble scratches along her cheek while he moves to her neck, planting rough, sloppy kisses along the way.

He kisses her ear, nibbles on her lobe, and she gasps out loud. Rey’s mind tries to wrap around what is happening, where they were before, and how it led to now. But it doesn’t linger, Ben doesn’t let it – he nibbles and sucks along her neck and collarbone, snapping her out of any reverie she was starting to fall into.

He presses his cheek against her face as he sits up, keeping that rough contact until he is leaning above her. Rey wonders how attractive she could possibly be right now, still not recovering from this alarming new mood he’s in, ogling him with wide, bewildered eyes, red in the face, and breathing through her mouth.

Ben’s dark eyes scan over her features and his lips part. His gaze is setting Rey aflame. She still can’t find her regular breath. Her heartbeat is so violent it vibrates her body. Ben raises a hand and brushes her hair behind her ear.

“Rey…” Ben’s husky voice produces a jolt down her spine. “Do you want me to keep going?”

Rey is vaguely aware of how she must look again, her jaw slightly dropped, blinking stupidly up at him. She nods, not knowing what else to do or say.

“Fuck…” he breathes, returning so aggressively to her neck that she jumps.

She can feel wetness collect between her legs and she squirms under the pressure of his body against hers. Ben checks to make sure these are motions of desire and not resistance. He catches the desperate gleam in her eyes, breathes out in relief, and grins, moving to take her lips again.

Rey doesn’t have time to be nervous or self-conscious – his momentum prevents any opportunity to think of anything except what he is doing to her. He doesn’t take a break – when his full lips aren’t pressed against her somewhere, his hands are traveling down her sides, grabbing her hips, running along the side of her leg.

He grips her there, beneath her right knee and lifts her leg up with purposeful strength. He moves himself between her legs, holding her leg against his side, sucking on her tongue, moaning into her mouth. Rey is lost to him, fully in his control. The surprise she can’t seem to get past fuels her pleasure. The way he touches her is exquisite, like he’s worshiping her body with his hands.

“Say the word,” he breathes into her ear, lustful pants around his words, “and I stop. Okay?”

Rey can’t think of anything she’d rather do less. She still can’t speak; she’s having an out of body experience. His strong hands grip her waist and he squeezes her side over and over, like he can’t stop himself from handling as much of her as he can.

“Rey…” he growls back in her ear. “Answer me.”

“Okay!” She mouths the word, her voice is mere breath, but he sees it, he sees the hunger in her eyes, the blush on her face.

He looks her over again and his eyes roll back in his head for a moment as he falls back to her, this time on her chest, kissing the creamy skin beneath her throat and above the V neck of her dress. Then he sits up, straddling one of her legs, and glares at her covered chest with a dark sneer.

Rey looks down – he’s fingering the bottom of her dress, testing the stretch of the fabric. Rey gasps as she realizes what he’s about to do…she just bought this thing, for him, for their date…

Before she can find words to protest, Ben smirks and grabs the top of it with both fists and thrusts out to the sides. The sound of the long, even rip is shocking…but strangely satisfying. Rey looks down at her pert breasts trying to rise to him, what’s left of her dress draped to her sides.

Rey stares, her mouth agape, not sure if she’s about to scold him or laugh.

“I’ll get you a new one,” he says, humor in his voice, looking a little surprised himself at what he had just done. “Something even more beautiful.”

A playful smile grows on his face, he bites his lip and surveys her again, this time running his hands down her body, over her breasts, to her flat belly, and sliding his fingers under the hem of her panties.

“Take those off the old-fashioned way,” Rey says, watching him eye them distastefully.

Ben’s eyes snap up to hers, widening slightly at her words. She has just given permission to do something he had intended to wait on, ease her into at the very least. For a moment he wants to question it, demand she think it through first, the sweet virgin she is. Yet her stunning hazel eyes reassure him. It is Ben who has always been distrustful, not Rey. She has trusted him from the beginning, it’s easy for her to give herself over. She’s comfortable with him, always has been. Her inexperience is in his hands. He has the reins.

This realization hits him deeply, the swell of pride and gratitude overcoming him almost as severely as the arousal that comes with it. He falls back over her, crushing her, and rolls off to her side, kissing her mouth again with a resurgence of energy.

Rey can feel him hard against her hip – a new flood of wetness soaks her panties and she becomes dizzy with lust. Panting against her throat, Ben pushes her underwear down and Rey chokes as the cool air hits her burning flesh. Instantly his face is at the base of her stomach, kissing her hip.  He doesn’t even take a moment to look before holding his hand over her and palming her, the tops of his fingers tickling her stomach.

Rey inhales sharply and holds her hands over her forehead, her face still stuck in shock. She still hasn’t caught up with where this has come from, or what she’s supposed to do in response. All she knows is that this is unexpected and incredible. She hadn’t even given herself the chance to consciously desire this kind of contact, thinking it was far, far away. She hasn’t had time to worry about her lack of experience or think about what she should do for him in response if the opportunity arose. It never occurred to her that all she has to do is lay there, as it seems is all he expects.

Her brain begins to catch up and she looks down the hard, enticing curves of his body through his shirt. She might not know what she’s doing, but she knows what she wants to do. The pressure of his palm feels achingly good, the way it circles over her sensitivity, creating ripples of pleasure up high inside her. She wants to give back a little before he continues. She wants him to feel this way too.

She reaches for his chest and he flinches. Rey realizes she needs to be careful – her eagerness for him is not quite the same as his ability to receive her. She looks up at him and waits for his short nod. She stretches out her fingers and ghosts over the curves of his muscles, over his small, tight nipples, down his corded abs to his bellybutton. He wines in response – it’s a small, quiet cry of pleasure that sends a zing from the ache in Rey’s core through every limb in her body.

Ben pushes his hand more firmly against her and lets his fingers relax over the outside of her entrance. Rey can see what she does to him, his pants strain indecently above her leg. She suspects that like her, he is experiencing the carnal pleasures that come from another person’s loving touch for the first time. But his focus seems to be entirely on her.

Ben looks into her eyes for a second, a heart-clenching blend of lust and affection on his features. He offers her the sweetest smile, melting her for the few seconds it lasts, before he kisses down her hip.

_Now_ he looks. His head is tilted as he examines her, her feminine peddles so dark and swollen for him. Rey watches him, surprisingly not as shy as she thought she would be, but rather dizzy with the need to see how he will react. She watches his throat constrict as his breath gets tangled inside. Absentmindedly, he runs a quick hand down the bulge in his pants before adjusting his position to see her better.

He takes her panties off the rest of the way, scrunches them up in a ball and holds them in his fist. Rey keeps watching but he never throws them to the side. They stay in his grasp as he begins to suckle her inner thigh. Whatever he’s doing to the sensitive flesh there seems to be connected precisely to the nub between her legs. She makes a sound combining a cough and a choke.

He grabs her leg tight and moves it up higher to where her knee almost reaches her breast. His lips slide up to her hip and to the base of her stomach, leaving behind a dark purple hickey on her thigh.

Rey is shaking from all these sensations. Ben’s dominant energy has surged again. He slips one strong arm under her and moves her lower on the bed, so she lines up perfectly with his hand. He puts his pointer finger in his mouth and then presses his lips to her temple as he inserts it inside her.

A gasp breaks past his lips as he feels how hot she is to the touch; how swollen and eager she is. The sweet moan that comes from her throat nearly unravels him. He’s never heard something so precious in his life. This innocent creature beside him, nuzzling her head in his neck, like he’s comforting her rather than pleasuring her. It’s almost too much.

The movement of his touch, it’s soft, it’s gentle, it’s not as wild as he was intending. He didn’t expect her to be so sensitive, so easy to please. Her hair brushes over her back and shoulders as she arches her back, thrusts her pelvis in his hand, gulping softly at the repeated motion, caressing his arm with an angel-soft touch. He stares down at her in shock. She is actual sunshine. Absolute purity.

Ben is reduced to simply gawking at her, watching her angelic face, her closed eyes, her softly puckered lips moving slow, like she’s suckling something, overwhelmed in her pleasure. He didn’t expect this. He’s overcome with affection. His heart swells at the affect he has on this beautiful girl. It shouldn’t be possible. She’s too good. Too sweet.

Finally, her eyes blink open and she looks at him for a second before looking down, shyly, releasing a harsh, breathy sigh as he curls his finger up against her roof. He’s completely enamored with her. He starts to feel her clamp against his finger, and suddenly she gasps and her eyes fly open again. A blush rises to her cheeks as her jaw drops slightly, breathing rapidly through it, looking at him like he holds the sky.

Ben bites the insides of his lips, nearly moved to tears by this display. What has he just done?

Rey catches her breath as he slowly releases her, his fingertips now tracing up her stomach. She feels so comfortable, soft everywhere, malleable to Ben’s every touch. She’s never felt anything like that. It was so good…and warm… And he was so sweet to her.

Ben lays his head down on the pillow and watches her lips. Rey holds his hand and kisses it. His eyebrows push together, and his expression looks thoughtful. He’s ever a mystery to her.    

She looks down at the strain in his pants. She bites her lip and smiles, imagining freeing what’s trapped inside. She wonders if he’d like what her inexperienced hands could do. He’s always been so sweet; he wouldn’t make fun of her. And she might surprise both of them…

She stretches her fingers weakly towards it. Ben looks down at the movement and chuckles as he captures her traveling fingers in his hand and kisses them. He pushes the hair out of her face with his whole large hand, looking affectionately at her tired face.

Rey lets out a contented “hm…” and leans into his neck.

“I’d like to see you,” she whispers.

He shushes her, his delicious mouth against her ear, and runs his fingers through her hair.

“Go to sleep, sweet Rey,” he says.

“Ben…” she complains, leaning back.

He smiles at her. Rey tilts her head to the side and reaches up to the left side of his face and drags her fingers slowly down his cheek. His breath hitches and he turns his head to let her fingers brush over his lips.

He groans and leans down to burrow his face in her neck. Rey draws her fingernails over his back, feeling a resurgence of passion at the feel of his soft, tremulous breaths against her neck. He’s so peaceful, overwhelmed with affection for her, wanting to keep her still, keep her safe, keep her with him.

Rey turns to her side and embraces him. He rests his face on top of her small breasts.

He hugs her back tightly. Rey’s heart aches at the way he’s holding her, the way he’s breathing against her, full of emotion, full of happiness. She still isn’t sure exactly what this experience was for him, having never done anything like it herself, but she suspects it means far more to him than she could understand right now.

She looks down at him at her chest, squeezing his eyes shut, lips pressed firmly together. He’s holding back so much emotion. Rey thinks if she were to say anything, anything at all to him right now he might break. So she kisses his temple. Even that is too much; he chokes on a sharp breath in and hugs her even tighter, turning his face into her body.

Rey wants to tell him thank you, that she loved their date tonight. She wants to thank him for talking to her, for trusting her, and she wants him to know how important he is, how much he’s grown to mean to her, how hard she would fight for him. She wants to tell him all the things he does to her body, how his every touch is perfect, loved, and appreciated. She wants to tell him she’s happy. That he makes her happy. And she wants to tell him he needs to let himself be happy too, because he deserves that. But she takes pity on his state right now, knowing how hard he’s working to control himself as it is.

So, instead, she says, “Goodnight.”


	18. The Cabin

Rey sneaks back into Ben’s bedroom the next morning with a large, aromatic blueberry muffin on a plate, fresh from the oven. Ben smiles sleepily as she puts it on the mattress next to him. The light on the bed is dusty, the air is quiet around them, full of settled down emotions and feelings of calmness and intimacy.

Ben doesn’t say anything as he curls his body so she can sit down. Rey smiles at him and puts a bite in his mouth. He leans up and kisses her lips before chewing and swallowing. She watches his eyes affectionately as look her over, a soft look on his face.

There’s a gentle rumble of thunder and then a light rain begins to tickle the window. Ben kisses her pulse, and her shoulder, and the crook of her elbow, and her wrist, and then her palm, looking back into her eyes.  

Rey is starting to get used to this touching, peaceful energy that they have together more often than not. It doesn’t come as such a surprise anymore, though she’s acutely aware of it every time. She’s started to call this feeling ‘love’.

“Good morning,” she says.

His lips stretch into a tired smile, preoccupied with gazing at each of her features from her messy hair to the end of her knees.

“Are you doing okay?” Rey asks him.

He looks back in her eyes and grins, kissing the back of her hand now. “Never better.”

“Okay,” she says and kisses his cheek and lips and cheek again because she can’t help it. She nuzzles the side of her head against his. “Just making sure. A lot happened yesterday.”

The long sigh he releases next to her ear makes her dizzy.

“Rey,” he says. “I don’t want to hide anything from you.”

Rey kisses the curve of his jaw. “As if you could.”

The tone of his voice is intoxicating. Their small act last night stirred something inside her she didn’t know was there and now his voice and breath and gaze and just about everything he does has forged a direct link with it. They aren’t talking about anything sexy, but his voice…the feel of his lips on her cheek as he speaks…it does things to her.

“You’re sweet to be supportive,” Ben says, and Rey shifts herself on top of him. “You always seem to trust that I’m the good guy, even when all evidence says otherwise.”

Rey lets out an involuntary moan as he nibbles on her earlobe, which draws out his own. Rey swallows heavily.

“You’re the good guy because of who you are now,” Rey replies between breaths.

“Now?” he yelps, outraged. “A sorry moment past ten long years of being a monster?”

He tries to sit up, but Rey shakes her head and continues kissing his chest.

“Don’t,” she says, smoothing her hands over his shoulders. “The things you may or may not have done wrong are between you and other people, not me. Let me be the one who’s on your side. The one person you don’t have to apologize to.”

He shakes his head, eyes closed, with his finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t deserve it.”

Rey reaches up to touch his cheek, but he catches her hand and lifts her off of him. It seems like he’s pushing her away at first but once he sits up, he pulls her back into his lap and buries his face in her hair. The ease at which he moves her around touches that new feeling inside her. So does the forceful, yet gentle way he holds her now.  

“Don’t stop, though,” he says, kissing the soft skin between her neck and shoulder. “I couldn’t bear it if you did.”

Rey’s back arches as she leans into his kisses. His lips are so full and soft. His hair tickles her shoulder. She smiles as she brushes it back with her fingers.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she assures him. “I just want you to be happy.”

His lips leave her body, leaving her feeling a little empty. His expression is a mixture of awe and humility. He brushes a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“I’ve spent every day since I killed him trying to clean up our mess,” he says, looking straight into her eyes. “Every cent I had, every resource has gone to protecting the people designed to go under if Snoke ever died. That’s why I’m here, Rey. I needed a place to stay to sort this out before I moved on.”

Rey speaks past the sudden surge in her heart rate, trying to ignore the implications of what he just said, 'move on'... “Couldn’t the police help them? Why did you have to do all that?”

“Because I owed them that much. And because it wasn’t just the innocent that needed help. I did everything I should have done for Hux. And it’s over now, Rey…”

“What about your protection?” Rey says quickly, avoiding the direction he’s headed.

He shrugs off her concern. “There have always been protections in place for me. Very few people knew my real name. Most of them are dead now.”

“Phasma knows,” Rey says in a small voice.

Ben shrugs. “She wouldn’t give me up.”

Rey think about the bloodshot craze in Phasma’s eyes from the night before, that terrible slap, the cruel words blasting from his phone. She isn’t so sure.

Ben shakes his head at the expression on Rey’s face. “I promise. She doesn’t want me dead by anyone’s hands but her own.”

“That’s not funny,” Rey says.

“Rey.” He lifts her chin up with his index finger. His dark eyes stare into her hazel ones. “I’m safe.”

Rey is quiet and Ben holds her cheek in his palm.

“Did you enjoy our date? While it lasted?” he asks softly.

An unwilling smile takes over her lips. She sighs.

“It was magical.”

Ben nods, his face stoic.

“I’m sorry my shit keeps ruining things,” he says.

“It didn’t ruin anything.”

He offers a sad half-smile, looking down.

“Ben?” Rey says. “Are you okay? Really?”

He shrugs. “Phasma has been a pain in my ass since we were eight. I can handle her.”

“I know you can, but are you okay?”

Ben is sure he’s never going to get used to this. Part of him wishes Rey would stop, wishes she understood that it is _her_ that matters. She doesn’t need to waste her time worrying about him. But he has yet to say this to her, never quite finding the strength to actually reject her affection.

He looks at the golden flakes in her eyes and says, “You make everything okay. You always have.”

Rey exhales a soft laugh and holds her heart. “You say the sweetest things to me.”

He shrugs again.

“Ben?”

He looks at her.

“Don’t go,” she says, referring to his hints earlier. “Please. Not yet.”

“No,” he says, dragging his thumb over her chin. “Not yet.”

Rey leans over and kisses him.

“So, what do you want to do today? I’m clearly not going to the studio.”

“Whatever you want,” he replies, as Rey knew he would.

“Don’t forget we’re visiting my home in the mountains the day after tomorrow.”

Ben stares at her.

“Ben, you promised. I want to show you where I’m from.”

He sighs. “Couldn’t I drive you up there sometime, the two of us?”

Rey exhales and takes pity on him. She would never want to make him do something he doesn’t want to do.

“Yeah,” she says. “That would be fine.”

A roadblock pops up in Ben’s mind and he backtracks. This is something she wanted. Maybe it’s possible it could go okay; Rey, his mother, Luke, and him in the same car, in the same proximity for two days. He inwardly groans and leans over to kiss the side of her cheek.

“Alright, Rey,” he says. “I’ll go.”

 

Two days later, Rey sits at her vanity in the morning sunlight, putting on a pretty summer scarf Leia had given her.

Luke raps his knuckles on her open door and steps inside.

“You about ready to go, little Rey?” he says.

“Almost,” she replies.

“Leia’s packing up the car. She’ll probably be ready soon.”

“Have you seen Ben yet?”

Luke frowns as though he had forgotten he was coming. “No, not yet.”

Leia peaks her head in the door. “You two ready? Aww Rey, you’re wearing my mother’s scarf. How beautiful.”

Rey blushes and smiles. “Have you seen Ben?”

“Yes, I made him go get the folding table out of the shed.”

“So he is coming?” says Luke.

“Of course he is,” Leia replies. “He told me he would at our lunch yesterday.”

Luke looks surprised and, if Rey didn’t know any better, a little disappointed.

“Well,” he says. “Let’s get going before the day wastes away.”

Rey follows Leia and Luke outside to Leia’s SUV. Ben is adjusting the table to fit in the back. He shuts the trunk and comes around the side of the car as the others approach.

Rey grins at him and the corners of his lips curve up in response. Leia can’t hide her smile as she walks around to the door. Luke nods at Ben in greeting, trying not to scowl.

Rey can tell Ben is uncomfortable, but he opens the passenger door for his mother and then the back door for Rey. He climbs in after her and buckles his seatbelt, looks out the window, and taps his finger rapidly on his leg.

Luke backs the car up as he and Leia gab about directions. Rey slides over to the middle seat and elbows Ben’s arm.

“Hey,” she whispers.

He turns to her, irritably, and Rey suppresses a giggle. She reaches for his hand and pulls it in her lap. Ben looks up to the front to see if the other two noticed.

He shakes his head, knowing Rey is teasing him, and looks back out the window. But he closes his fingers around her hand.

“I had a dream about you last night,” whispers Rey.

“Shut up,” he hisses to the window.

“What, don’t you want to know what it was about?”

She is pushing his buttons in this stressful situation he’s stuck in. If and when he gets through this, he’s going to have some words with her about sensitivity. The last time he spent this much time with his mother and uncle he was a shitty teenager. It was awkward then and it’s awkward now. And he wasn’t even dating their golden child back then.

“What are you two whispering about back there?” says Leia.

Ben looks horrified and Rey snickers through her nose.

Luke is stone faced as he glances through the review mirror and catches Rey’s eye. She bites her lip and looks down bashfully.

“Leia is worried we won’t want to come back if we see our old home,” Luke says.

“That’s a possibility,” says Rey.

Ben’s head snaps in her direction so fast that Rey chokes on another laugh. Leia puts her hands on the center console and turns all the way back to glare at her.

“I’m kidding!” says Rey. “I could never go back to solitude after this!”

“I could,” says Luke, moodily.

Leia smacks his arm and Rey chuckles. “Don’t be silly, wherever I am, Luke will be too.”

Luke winks at her through the review mirror.

Ben rolls his eyes and leans against his elbow on the door.

It’s a long drive. Rey climbs back over to the far seat to watch out the window. She knows these trees. The sight of them feels like she’s come home for the holidays; their rich scent and enormous leaves fill her with warmth.

She swallows a lump in her throat as Luke finally curves around to a clearing in the forest. The curve of larger mountains surrounds them and their blueish purple tops blend into the perfect blue sky.

Rey opens the door the moment the car comes to a stop. She runs to the creek coming around the side of the car and follows it straight into the meadow, the water chattering like an old friend at her side. Her and Luke’s hut is up ahead – she keeps thinking it will get larger the closer she gets, but it really is so very small.

The creek comes to a curve and a simple stone bridge allows her to cross. Tears come to her eyes as she sees it. Luke made that the first day they arrived here.

She stares at the place she’s called home for the last ten years, memories dancing like ghosts in front of her eyes. She and Luke built most of the little hut together. They cultivated that little overgrown vegetable garden next to it. This forest was her playground. The clouds above in that enormous sky was her entertainment. They meditated and star gazed and talked and laughed together right there on that porch. And it’s all so much smaller than she remembered.

A weathered hand drapes over her shoulder and Luke comes to stand by her side. She leans into him, watching the quiet, lonely hut.

“You’re not getting nostalgic on me, are you?” he teases.

“Not at all,” she says. “Was this place always so small?”

Luke chuckles. “You were always meant for bigger places.”


	19. Sentiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting and sorry for the delayed update. Life happened, as it does. I should be updating more frequently now. Hope everyone's happy and well :)

Leia and Ben hang back, giving Luke and Rey space with their old home for a while. They walk arm in arm around the place, pointing at things, insignificant things it would seem, but each has a story. When they come back around, they see Ben’s tall and Leia’s short forms waiting by the stone bridge.

Luke waves them over. Leia reaches out for her brother’s arm and walks ahead with him as Ben and Rey follow behind. Luke and Rey point to all their “spots”, the place they tried and failed to build themselves a summer pool, the trees near the house that Rey planted herself, the original vegetable garden near the forest that the deer always got into, the place they saw a bear passing by with her cubs. Ben watches Rey with the same expression that Leia has looking at Luke.

“This is where Luke and I practiced Aikido.” Rey points to an opening in the trees that is surrounded by thin stacks of stones. “I’ll never forget that first day.”

Luke laughs. “She was a feisty little thing,” he tells Leia. “She wanted to learn, but she didn’t want me to teach her.”

“Sounds a bit like someone else I know,” says Leia.

Ben appears surprised that he is being addressed. He looks at his mother and then he looks at Luke. Is he really being included in this sentimental, nostalgic drivel?

Luke has a brief moment of stoicism before he nods and cracks a smile.

“Do you remember anything I taught you?” he asks Ben.

This might be the first time Luke has spoken directly to him since the day he arrived last May. Ben clears his throat and nods.

“A little,” he says.

“The most important thing I always told Rey,” Luke says, “is that everything you’re learning to do with your body must also be done with your mind. We’re training to end the fight within ourselves, not begin a fight with others.”

“I tended to fight with both,” says Ben.

Luke nods. He isn’t smiling but his eyes are kind. “A mistake I’ve made in the past as well.”

Leia looks between the two men and steps back around them, sensing that maybe this would be a good time to leave them alone together. She slips her arm around Rey’s waist and guides her back toward the hut.

“I’d love to see the inside, if you’ll let me,” Leia says to her.

Rey opens the little door to the small, charming home. Inside appears even smaller than the outside. How did they fit in here all those years? It feels like they’ve been gone for ages, though it was only a several months ago that Luke and Rey spent their last night here. Rey sighs. She really has outgrown it.

Leia admires all the decorations Rey had made as a child. She gasps and coos over each little thing; the small chair by the fireplace, the framed sketches along the wall in Luke’s room, the pine branch wreath over Rey’s bedroom door. Finally, after viewing a pine needle-stuffed doll that Rey said she made her first week there, Leia scoops Rey in a hug and rocks her back and forth. Rey feels eight years old again and she’s not complaining one bit.

“Oh, little Rey,” Leia says over Rey’s shoulder. “You’re so bright and talented. It hurts my heart to think of you growing up out here with no one around but my crabby brother.”

Rey laughs.

Leia holds Rey’s face between her old, soft hands. She brushes Rey’s hair away from her forehead.

“I would have loved being your auntie,” she says.   

“You _are_ my auntie.”

“You know what I mean. I always wanted a little girl of my own.”

Leia looks out the window where Luke and Ben are still talking in the field. Ben is sitting down on a stone and Luke is pacing. That’s not a good sign, Rey thinks. Leia doesn’t seem to notice. Leia chuckles airily.

“He would have made a terrible big brother.”

Rey hugs her from behind and rests her chin on her shoulder. “Thanks for coming here with us, Leia.”

“Of course, darling.” She kisses Rey’s head. “This has been one of the best days of my life.”

Rey starts. “Really?”

Leia hums. “You’ve no idea how hard it is to have all the people I love in one place for an extended period of time. If only Han were here. He’d never believe it.”

Rey’s eyebrows crease as she watches Leia watch her son across the field.

“I wish I had met him,” Rey says.

“Me too.” Leia pats Rey’s hand. “He would have loved you.”

Rey grins.

“He was always much closer with Ben than I ever was,” Leia says with misty eyes. “Does – does Ben ever mention him?”

Rey shakes her head.

“No, I wouldn’t think so.” She pets Rey’s hair as she continues to look outside.

“Uh oh,” says Leia.

Ahead in the field, Luke has his hands raised around his head, gesturing animatedly. Ben stands from his stone and storms back toward the hut.

“Well, they lasted longer than I thought they would.” Leia laughs. “I’ll go check on Luke.” She squeezes Rey around the shoulders and slips out.

Rey continues to stand in the same spot, now watching Luke pinching the bridge of his nose and walking around in a circle. Leia comes around from the other side of the house and joins him in the field. She takes his arm, pats it, and leads him on a stroll along the creek. Luke is still gesturing with his free hand.

Rey hears the front door behind her open and close.

“Isn’t it nice hanging out in the sticks with the family?” Rey says, still looking out the window.

“Yeah,” Ben grumbles, coming up behind her. “It’s been a delight.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Ben puts his arms under hers and pulls her back against his chest. Rey smiles as she turns her head so that her cheek is against him. He smells heavenly.

“My uncle loves you more than anyone else alive,” says Ben.

Rey nods. She turns around and warps her arms around his thick torso. She tilts her head up and he kisses her.

“Was he giving you a ‘dad’ talk or something?”

Ben shrugs. “Something like that. A ‘you better prove to me you’re a changed man before you go near my little girl’ kind of talk.”

Rey kisses him again. “He really has been in denial these last few months. So, were you successful in proving it to him?”

“I told him it was none of his fucking business.”

Rey groans. “You didn’t.”

“He doesn’t give a shit about me,” Ben says. “He doesn’t want to reconcile anything. He just wants to protect you. I don’t have to prove anything to him. You can look after yourself. And I can take care of you, too.”

Rey smiles and holds his hand over the top of her chest. His hand is so large and warm. She’s quiet for a while, thinking. She turns toward the little room and sighs.

“My first night here, I remember I was standing over here behind this wall, watching Luke’s every move. I wouldn’t eat what he gave me, I wouldn’t close my eyes in his presence. He didn’t say a word about any of that, he let me do my own thing. When it came time for him to go to bed, he came around here to where I was standing, kneeled in front of me, and said, ‘You are so special, little Rey.’ No one had ever said that to me before. He said it every night for those first few months before going to bed. And says it still.

“Luke has been my protector since I was twelve years old. I owe my life to him.”

Ben looks up to the wood ceiling and groans. “Alright,” he says. “I’m an asshole.”

Rey giggles. “No, you’re not.”

She takes his hand and they go back outside. They return to the car to set up the folding table for supper while Luke and Leia continue to walk the perimeter of the field. Rey picks a handful of wildflowers for the table.

“How lovely!” says Leia as they come back around. “How nice of you two to set up!”

At first Rey thinks Leia is pretending like everything is fine to preserve the peace. But Rey realizes she is genuinely happy right now, despite the animosity between her brother and son. This is still far better than Leia had expected.

Leia helps Rey set out the food, and Luke stands moodily by the car. Ben closes his eyes for a moment and then rises from the table and walks over to him.

“I owe you an apology,” Ben says.

Luke is scowling but his eyes widen in surprise.

Ben takes a breath and says, “If you want to talk to me about Rey, I’m listening.”

Rey and Leia pretend to adorn the flowers, but they are huddled together in silence, concentrating their hearing behind them.

Luke clears his throat and stands up straighter. “Well…” He struggles like he’s not sure how to put his thoughts into words. “Forgive me for being blunt, but I’m not a hundred percent sold on the idea of you being in _any_ of our lives, let alone Rey’s.”

Ben nods slowly. “I can understand that.”

Luke considers him, waiting for an explosion, or a sign of one. Ben simply waits for him to continue.

“If it were a matter of bygones, I might... If you were to tell me the old way is over – ”

“It is over,” says Ben.

Luke nods. “But you know it’s more serious than that.”

Rey looks over her shoulder. Ben is clenching his fists behind his back. Leia nudges her and Rey turns back around.

“Do we – ” Ben exhales loudly. “Do we need to dredge up every – every – ”

Rey moves to turn around again, but Leia takes her hand.

“Let me be clear,” comes Luke’s gruff voice. “My concern is with Rey. Everything else is between you and your mother.”

Ben deepens his voice. “Then what is it you are concerned about?”

Rey knows Ben is only putting himself through this for her. She can’t take it anymore. Before Luke can answer, Rey whirls around past Leia’s attempts to stop her, and marches over to them. She walks past Ben and opens her arms to Luke. He’s surprised at her sudden appearance but accepts her hug.

“Isn’t it enough that he is here now?” Rey says to him. “Doesn’t that prove things are different?”

Luke looks down into her golden-hazel eyes.

“I’d really like to enjoy this trip together,” Rey says. “Can’t we relax and try to have some fun?”

Luke glances at Ben, who is now staring at the ground.

Rey looks stern as she regains eye contact with Luke. “I’m afraid I can’t let you bully him around me.”

Luke stares at her for several seconds before letting out a bark of laughter.

“Well then,” he says. “That settles it.”

He kisses Rey’s temple and guides her back over to their picnic table. He’s suddenly all smiles and jokes, building himself a sandwich and teasing his sister.

Ben doesn’t join them. He starts to walk through the clearing before Rey catches up to him.

“Where are you going?”

Ben sighs. “I think this might have been a mistake.”

“It’s _not_ a mistake,” says Rey firmly. “It’s just hard. It’ll get easier.”

He doesn’t look convinced.

Rey steps close to him. “Give me a kiss and let’s go back. Everyone’s a little on edge. It’s okay. We’ll be glad we got through it and then next time won’t be so difficult.”

“Next time?”

“Yes, next time.”

Rey leans up on her tip toes to kiss him and they go back to the picnic table. Leia greets them with a glowing smile and pours them each a glass of lemonade. Ben sits next to Rey awkwardly, the table not quite fitting his long limbs. He answers when he is spoken to and he even smiles at some of Leia’s jokes.

Rey takes Ben’s hand under the table and Leia keeps catching Rey smiling at him. Leia watches her son blush under Rey’s gaze. She watches him look tenderly at Rey’s head every time she leans on his shoulder. Her boy is not angry or tormented or lashing out at anyone. Somehow, he’s earned the affections of this girl and Leia sees right in front of her how happy this makes him. Far be it for Luke or anyone else to take that away. She’ll fight tooth and nail. She’ll do anything to continue to see that beautiful glow around them. That handsome smile on Ben’s face. She almost forgot what it looked like. He was a young boy the last time he had anything to smile about.

Leia dabs at her eyes with her napkin as Ben spoons more fruit salad onto Rey’s plate. Luke notices Leia’s dreamy gaze and follows it to see Rey playfully nudging her shoulder against Ben’s, and Ben shaking his head at her silliness. Luke clenches his fork and frowns. Leia steps on his foot and sighs happily.

After their meal Luke and Ben set up their tents while Leia and Rey make up the beds inside. While they make smores around a campfire, Rey whispers to Ben an invitation to join her inside once everyone goes to sleep, but Ben is certain Luke is going to be up all night making sure he doesn’t do just that.

Which is why he is horrified when Rey comes crawling in his tent at 2am, grinning devilishly at her own stealth.

“Rey, have you lost your mind?”

“Just for a minute,” she whispers, holding her finger to her lips. “I needed to kiss you…”

He blinks at her for a minute, nothing but the sound of crickets between them. Then Rey lets out a little squeak as Ben pounces on her and secures her beneath him on top of his sleeping bag. He kisses her lips long and unrelenting, hardly letting up enough for them to breathe. Rey wraps her arms around him, hanging on for dear life, pulling against gravity to be as close to him as she can.

Her heart is like hummingbird wings as he relishes her lips, his hair falling around the sides of her face, his scent both comforting and enticing, his weight simultaneously crushing her to the ground and making her soar.

“Rey, how dare you come into this tent and say that to me,” Ben rasps into her ear, making her dizzy. “I’m going to lose my mind…”

Rey feels a little lightheaded from all the panting she didn’t realize she was doing, but she has no interest in slowing down. He tastes impeccable and his deep voice, groaning every two or three breaths, propels her to a space into which she’s been dying to go. She grips his back with each finger and thrusts her tongue in his mouth.

The moment she feels him hard against her leg, she nearly loses consciousness, but when he starts moving slightly on top of her, gently grinding into her, desperate for a little relief, she cries out. Ben claps his hand over her mouth, and she stares at him wide-eyed, his large hand taking up half her face, and shutters with want.

He looks angry and terrified for about five seconds before his face breaks and he chokes on a laugh.

“Are you going to behave?” he growls in her ear.

She thinks about it, and then slowly shakes her head in the negative.

He glares at her, smiling.

“Rey…”

“I’ll be quiet,” she mumbles against his hand.  

After another warning glare, he releases her. Rey feels like she’s about to be lit on fire from the charcoal burning in his eyes.

“Don’t stop,” she begs at a whisper.

His teeth drag over his bottom lip as he eyes the curve of her neck down to the dip in her shirt, revealing the start of her cleavage.

“ _Please_ , Ben…”

His eyes roll back in his head as he falls back into her, kissing her lips and then her neck, and down her chest to the dip in her shirt. Rey worries he’s either going to tear another article of her clothing or let the shirt stop him from going where they both want him to go; she sits up suddenly, pulls off her shirt, and discards it violently. It hits the wall of the tent and creates a dramatic ripple that surely could be seen if anyone was watching.

Ben’s eyes are wide with desire as he holds both strong hands on the sides of her ribcage, his breath failing him as he runs his thumbs over her small breasts. Her nipples pebble at the attention, her chest heaves, and the sigh that releases from her perfect, creamy throat is nearly his undoing.

“Fuck…” is all his can think to say, and he gently lowers her back down and slowly begins kissing her stomach.

“Ben, you feel so good,” Rey whispers and he squeezes her ribcage in response. “I love the way you touch me.”

Rey knows she shouldn’t be talking to him. He’s never been able to handle words of affection very well, it’s too shocking or bewildering or whatever it is that provokes those large, confused eyes, the parted lips, the soft expression that verges into territory that can take a sharp turn to either sentimentality or self-loathing, depending on his mood.

This time, however, he takes a different route entirely; his thumbs dig under the elastic of her leggings and he pulls them down past her bum. The crisp air makes Rey shiver, but she’s never been so excited. His burning hands feel enchanting on her cool skin.

“Rey…” he purrs, looking her over with glossy eyes. “You are perfection.”

Rey moans as his thumbs brush over her vulva, and he doesn’t even scold her for the noise. She squeezes his large, muscular leg in agony as he teases her, easing out more and more moisture between her legs.

He holds her backside firmly with both hands and begins to kiss down her stomach. Rey is certain he’s going to stop at her hip, but he doesn’t. His breath is hot against her, she shutters again, this time from the heat, and he plants a gentle kiss directly on her entrance.

Rey reaches for his pillow and slaps it over her face to dampen her cry. He kisses her again, his lips hotter than his breath, and Rey’s body suddenly feels like jelly.

“Ben…” her muffled voice wines.

“Shh…” He rubs his thumbs in gentle circles over her hips. “I’ve got you, baby.”

Rey’s heart nearly explodes at her new endearment, and melts from the heat of his deep, gravelly voice. It isn’t until she begins to see stars that she realizes she’s been forgetting to breathe. The gulp of air she takes in curves her back and pushes out her stomach. Ben watches the graceful figure beneath him and meets her eyes briefly in genuine wonder.

It’s more a feeling than a choice, more of a need than a motion as he begins to kiss her entrance again over and over until, with a deep groan, he thrusts his tongue inside her.

His tongue is rough and soft at the same time, hot and slick, firm but gentle and it’s all Rey can do to trap her voice behind her throat. It seems to surprise him that she hasn’t made a sound; he opens his eyes to make sure she’s okay. Those warm, chocolate eyes of his looking up at her as his whole mouth covers her is too much for her to look at. Her head drops back and she puts the pillow back over her face.

He laps her up, massaging every angle of her with his tongue. He doesn’t stop until he feels her walls clamping around his tongue, until her body is shuttering beneath him, until her hands are pressing the pillow over her mouth with all her strength, until she releases a long, tired sigh.

He crawls back up to her and when his chest is within reach, she burrows her face as close as she can possibly get. He’s so warm and comfortable. The way his chest heaves up and down with arousal stirs her up again and she’s about ready to jump on top of him when he whispers, “Okay, Rey…time to go.”

Her groan of distaste sounds more like a growl and he laughs.

“What you do to me,” he whispers in awe, hugging her close for a moment before releasing her and sitting up to unzip the tent.

Rey is hit with a sense of loss, a terrible ache for him, a need to continue to be close to him, to please him, to return the favor. She can’t help but feel lonely already, as the night air hits the parts of her naked body that aren’t covered by his sleeping bag. She can’t help but feel like she’s being cast out into the dark.

Ben must see something sad in her eyes; his brows furrow and he leans over to kiss her lips.

“I’d give anything for you to stay,” he whispers. “Next time we go camping, it’ll just be the two of us.”

Rey nods, knowing all along the reason he’s eager for her to leave is because Luke is twenty paces away, but relieved to hear it all the same.

“I’ll walk you back,” Ben says as he kisses her hair.

“It’s okay,” Rey whispers. “I don’t want to make too much noise.”

She peeks out the tent flap at Luke’s quiet tent. Ben slings his hand around to her stomach and pulls her back, making her fall into him. He twists around her and presses his mouth to hers, drinking up her surprised moan like it’s honey.

Rey tangles her fingers in his hair and kisses him back, the swell of what he just did to her growing deeper with what she wants to do to him.

“Let me stay…just twenty minutes more…”

Ben groans at her words, kissing her harder, squeezing her back with his fingertips. At last he breaks away from her lips and presses his cheek to hers, panting violently in her ear. Rey thinks the sound of his breathing alone might undo her again.

“I…can’t.”

Rey slowly drags her fingernails up and down his back. “I know…Luke is right there. I’m being stupid.”

He shakes his head quickly and leans back to grab her jaw with both hands.

“You’re the smartest person I know. The most generous. The most loving. What you’re doing with filth like me, I’ll never know.”

Rey searches his eyes, glaring slightly at the self-deprecating comment. But there’s more adoration in his face than anything dark. Rey kisses his soft, full lips one more time before pulling her leggings back on and peeking outside again.

“Goodnight, Ben,” Rey says, running the back of her pointer finger down his cheek.

Her little touch makes his breath hitch and he snatches her hand before she can take it away and places her palm back on his cheek.

“Goodnight,” he says.

Rey smiles at him; a full, beautiful smile, and then tip toes across the grass back to the cabin. As she passes Luke’s tent, she’s pleased to hear soft rhythmic snores coming from inside.

When she reaches the cabin door, she looks back. A triangular slit in Ben’s tent reveals an eye and part of his shadowed face, the corner of his mouth. She smiles one last time and goes inside.


	20. What Never Healed

The cool, dewy morning is enchanting in the spotted light of the forest. Leia happily makes up breakfast. Apart from her humming, the four of them stay rather silent that morning, only speaking when necessary. Rey remembers mornings in this cabin more vividly than any other time of day. There’s something wonderfully fresh about them, wholesome, and bright.

At 11:00, Rey asks if everyone would like to walk around the clearing before they head home. Luke and Rey walk arm in arm, laughing and telling stories where they talk over the other, trying to be the one to deliver the punch line. Leia watches the two of them ahead of her, delighted to her fingertips. Her son walks alongside her, on purpose, and looking content to do so. Leia could float away here and now.

A large pile of gold and crimson leaves blow around them as they pile into the car, at last leaving the little cottage once again.  

“I love the fall,” says Leia, watching the blur of greens and browns out her window as they drive.

“I’m not going to lie,” says Luke, “I’m looking forward to spending winter in your heated house.”

Leia laughs.

“You okay?” Ben whispers in the back.

Rey’s eyes are misty as she looks behind her out the back window.

“Yes,” she says. “It just feels like I’m officially closing that chapter of my life.”

“You can visit whenever you like,” he says.

She nods and smiles sadly.

“Come here,” he says, lifting his arm. Rey turns back around in her seat and leans her head against his warm chest.

She closes her eyes and says, “Hm.”

Rey sleeps the whole car ride home while the other three travel in silence. When they pull up Leia’s driveway at last, the sky is dark, and the moon is a sliver above the clouds.

Rey wakes when the car stops but she’s sleepy and comfortable in Ben’s arms and doesn’t want to move. She pretends to still be fast asleep as the two front car doors slam and footsteps crunch in the gravel outside. The door next to Ben opens gently.

“Should we wake her?” whispers Leia’s voice.

“I’ll bring her inside,” says Ben.

Rey knows that Ben knows she is faking. He smirks as he reaches to lift under her knees and carries her out of the car and through the front door of the manor. He hasn’t entered the house from this direction for over a decade.

Luke lingers behind them, glaring in the shadows as Ben pushes his elbow against Rey’s bedroom door and brings her inside.  

“Don’t you dare,” scolds Leia, handing Luke a bag of picnic supplies to put away. “You leave those two alone.”

Luke huffs and follows her to the enormous kitchen.

“You’re really okay with this?” he asks.

“Nope, nope, I’m not having this conversation with you,” says Leia, covering her ears. “Their lives, their decisions.”

Luke looks agitated as he puts the leftover food in the fridge.

“She wasn’t even asleep,” Luke grumbles. “She’s acting ridiculous.”

“She’s acting like a young woman in love,” says Leia.

Luke’s face turns so red Leia expects to see steam to coming out of his ears.

“Calm down,” says Leia. “Ben has a kind heart. And he really seems to like her.”

“A _kind_ _heart_?”

Just like that the atmosphere changes. Luke's face darkens and Leia suddenly feels fearful. 

“Luke, careful…this is my son we’re – ”

“He as good as murdered his father!”

Leia claps her hand over her mouth and stares at him, appalled he would say those words out loud.

“What, are we forgetting about that now?” Luke says. “He came home and ignored us for a few months and now all is forgiven?”

“There – there’s nothing to forgive. You know that wasn’t his fault…”

“No?” Luke exclaims. “Is that the story now?”

“Stop it!” Leia cries. “Ben loved him…”

“Ben left him for dead.”

The woman who never cries is broken at last, sobbing into her hands now, her elbows on the kitchen counter. “Han never saw it that way, it wasn’t his fault…”

“You have to hold him accountable for something, Leia.” Luke is on the other side of the counter standing over her. “Which death _is_ his responsibility? Han? That kid whose funeral we attended last spring? You always wanted to blame other people. And now you’ve let him back here without an explanation, an apology, anything! If that’s what happens to the people he loves, how am I supposed to feel about him with Rey?”

Leia is positively bawling, her head in her crossed arms.

“Mom?”

Luke and Leia both whirl around to the entrance of the kitchen where Ben is standing by himself.

“What’s going on?” he says.

Luke turns around and walks to the kitchen sink, his back to him. Leia is clutching her mouth, looking at her son like he’s dying before her eyes.

Ben looks between them, terrified.

“Seriously, what is it?” he says. “What happened?”

“Either he’s gone, or I am,” says Luke from the sink.

“What?” Leia cries, spinning around to him. She suddenly feels faint and stumbles backward. Ben lunges forward to catch her before she falls.

He helps her sit down on a dining room chair and squats down to look at her straight on, his eyebrows at harsh angles, his eyes begging her to answer him.

She doesn’t answer, her eyes are scrunched shut with her hands still over her mouth and she’s shaking her head from side to side.

Ben stands up and rounds on Luke. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, now you care about her, now that she’s finally hearing some sense…”

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t want you around my child,” Luke shouts. “Is that something you can understand, or do you need me to explain why?”

“Luke…” Leia sobs from the table.

Ben is rooted to the ground, stunned to silence.

Luke sighs and walks around him and bends over his sister, putting a firm hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Don’t cry, I’m sorry.”

Luke looks up and sees Rey standing at the hallway door, half her body hiding behind the wall. Her face is ghostly pale. Luke curses under his breath and keeps patting Leia’s shoulder, wishing she would stop crying.

“I’m sorry,” he says to her again. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

Leia takes a napkin from the table and wipes her eyes. Ben is still standing there in shock. Rey stares at Luke from halfway around a wall, looking at him like she did when she first came home with him ten years ago, when she didn’t trust him.

Luke takes a step toward Rey and then a step back to Leia. He’s made a mess of everything. Rey is looking at _Luke_ that way. Not at Ben.

“Alright,” says Luke, “maybe I’m the one who should go.”

“No,” says Ben. “I will.”

“NO!” Leia and Rey shout together.

Luke shakes his head, and steps toward the back door. “Stay put, Ben. Do the right thing, for once.”

 

Ben’s temper is buzzing, he feels like his mind is being split apart, the desire to chase after Luke, storm out himself, and stay here to console his mother driving him mad. He simply remains where he is between the table and the counter.

Whatever high Leia had been experiencing over the weekend has met its polar opposite. She’s devastated and embarrassed and hides her face in her folded arms, deathly silent. Ben watches Rey try to get Leia to look up. Rey’s white, trembling fingers stroke the sides of her arms as she whispers something in her ear.

Ben goes to the front door window and watches Luke’s car pull out and drive away. He punches a fist against the hardwood door, springs backward, and paces the hallway, taking five deep breaths before returning to the kitchen.

Leia is sitting up, her face drained and slightly green. She’s not crying but her face is formed in an agonizing pout, a look that’s so innocent and hurt… it’s torture to witness. She keeps clutching the left side of her chest and massaging it.

Rey is kneeling on the ground where Ben had been before, stroking Leia’s hair, holding her hand, trying to tell her it’s okay. It's clear from Leia's face how hard she is working to keep herself together. But the truth is, she's been a moment away from cracking since the day her husband died. 

“He’ll be back…” Rey keeps saying.

Of course he will be. A little outburst is nothing compared to what this family has endured. But the echo of his words "I'm the one who should go" drowns out Rey's words of comfort and Leia's own logic. She's been left one too many times.

Ben notices how Rey trembles as she attends to his mother. A flare of rage bursts through his chest aimed at Luke for not considering her. Does he hate Ben so much that he’d forget what affect walking out like this would have on Rey? On Leia? Threatening to leave them both after they've lost so much? A guilt the weight of the sun threatens to knock him to the ground. Ben caused this. He’s responsible for it all.

 Rey pets his mother’s arms consolingly; she keeps giving her hugs, and kisses on her hands. He can’t do any of that. He can’t even fucking do that.

Leia’s breathing is heavy, and she grabs her heart again.

“Why – why does she keep doing that?” Ben doesn’t recognize his own voice.

Rey stands up, her face sheet white, and motions for him to join her in the hallway.

“Ben,” Rey says carefully. “I’m going to take her to the hospital.”

His lungs deflate. His eyes are twice their usual size.  

“I’m sure she’s fine,” says Rey’s shaking voice. “It’s just a precaution.”

Ben’s vision tunnels and he doesn’t even know where he is anymore. Fear, like ice water, drains down his body. He tries to move, to do something to help, but his brain isn’t connected to his limbs anymore.

“I’ll take care of it,” Rey says, turning back to the kitchen. “I’m going to drive her. Don’t worry. Stay here in case Luke comes back.”

All he can do is nod erratically, looking into the kitchen where Leia struggles to catch her breath, her aged hand pressed to her chest. Rey flies off, puts an arm around Leia and helps her to stand. Ben holds the front door open for them.

“I’ll come…” he says.

“Stay here in case Luke comes back,” Rey says, and helps Leia into the car.

“Call him, please,” says Rey to him before she shuts the car door and drives away.

Ben shuts the door, his entire body trembling. He struggles to take his phone out of his pocket without dropping it, his hand is shaking so hard. He calls Luke. No answer. No voicemail set up. He calls again three more times. No answer.

He shouts and chucks his phone at the wall; it breaks in half and shatters to the floor. He hits his fists against the sides of his head. He can’t get that fucking backyard pool out of his mind. That’s the last time he felt this afraid and this helpless. Leia is having a heart attack, like his dad, and it’s all his fucking fault.

His stomach flips over and he bends over holding his gut. He can’t do this. He can’t live through her dying too…

He slams his fists on the kitchen counter and his wrist that he sprained earlier in the spring twinges painfully.

He collapses on a bar chair, his face in his hands.

“You don’t want me around Rey?” he chokes to the imaginary Luke in the room. “Mad I left? Like you’ve never walked out…like you didn’t leave to join a monastery you never went to so you could take care of a child who needed you? How about the kid who needed you here? What do I have to do to be good enough for you? Good enough for her?”

His words crack as he gives into self-pity, feeling terribly and irreversibly alone. His mind is taken over by images, like a dream he can’t control...

           

The sides of the old hospital, the hospital that has since closed down, are lit up by spotlights. Otherwise it’s pitch-dark outside, the moon absent from the sky. Ben waits in the shadows. He’s numb, his mind drowning in poison, stirrings of dread bubbling up in his throat.

Luke steps out the side door of the hospital and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. He starts when he notices Ben.

“You look like absolute shit,” says Luke.

Ben croaks, “Is he – ?” He isn’t used to using his voice.   

“Go inside and see for yourself.”

Ben shakes his head and backs away.

Luke’s eyes flash and he loses his temper. “Your dad almost died; you know that? What the hell did you do?”

He’s alive, then. A fall like that should have killed him.

Luke glares at him, waiting to see what Ben will do. When he doesn’t say anything, he spits on the ground.

“He has a blunt injury to his heart,” Luke says. “Doctor’s not sure how long it’ll hold up. Weeks, months, years, we’ll just have to see.”

If Ben opens his mouth to speak, he will vomit instead. The world is spinning.

Luke says, “Did you push him? Did you deliberately try to kill your father?”

Ben swallows thickly and the base of his eyelids shine with tears.

“It’s my fault.”

Luke stares at him and Ben holds his gaze, facing his persecution without any desire to hide away. Ben holds his mouth steady, biting the inside of his cheeks so hard that blood pools on his tongue.

“What does that mean?” Luke snaps.

Ben’s forehead creases and he clenches his fingernails against his palm as hard as he can. Luke is glaring at him with every ounce of fury he can summon. Ben is dead to him. Any familial affections have long since evaporated.

“You know what, go ahead and keep it to yourself,” says Luke. “I don’t want your excuses, anyway. I know all I need to. Han went to bring you back home and you left him for dead.”

“I had to go, my master – ”

“He’s your _father_!”

Ben clamps his jaw shut, his mouth watering, feeling like any second now he’s going to throw up.

“This is it, Ben, last chance,” says Luke.

Ben looks up from the ground, his eyes so like Leia’s in this moment. Luke’s lips are thin and shaking, eyes cold and desperate.

“Come inside with me now, or that’s it. Your father is three doors down the right hall. Your mother is sleeping in a chair. Go inside and all will be forgiven. We’ll rebuild together as a family.”

For a moment, Luke thinks he actually might do it. Ben looks longingly at the door next to them. However, the grounding swallow, the hard, dropped look to the ground, is answer enough.

“Then go,” Luke says.

Luke doesn’t wait for him to reconsider, doesn’t ask him to. He turns around unceremoniously, without another look or word, and disappears inside the hospital door.


End file.
